With thirty-four entries, the start list for the Women’s Championship Eight at the Head of the Charles is overflowing with talent. Leander are back across the Atlantic to defend their title from twelve months ago, but they are faced with a big challenge. Nine of the top eleven collegiate eights from the NCAA National Championships in May are raising the curtain on their season here where they are joined by four crews bearing the names of National Teams. Add in the twisty course, the Charles weaves through Cambridge adding an element of unpredictability that will make this event one of the highlights of the weekend.
Leander Club
After being the first British crew to win the event last year, Leander Club are back in Boston to defend their title. With the backing of the Colgan Foundation, the Henley-based club are able to tour the globe taking on the best the world has to offer. This crew will be from the top end of their women’s squad filled with those that will be aiming for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. With graduates from high-achieving universities from both sides of the Atlantic, they will be looking to repeat the events of last year as they head the field.
University of Pennsylvania
Finishing as the fastest collegiate boat was the start of the best season in recent history for the University of Pennsylvania Quakers. Since taking over in 2015, Wesley Ng has turned Penn from one of the weaker programs in the Ivy League to a program-best second placed finish at the Ivy League Championships. Ng earned Division 1 Coach of the Year honours after leading the first boat to fourth place at the NCAA Championships in only its second time qualifying, and then to Henley Royal Regatta and where they measured within a canvas of winning the Island Challenge Cup. What is exciting for the Philadelphia-based crew is that they have brought back six of the athletes from in the first boat at NCAAs and seven of the eight rowers who made it to Sunday at Henley. They will be looking to make yet another step up in this season opener.
University of Washington
While Wesley Ng might have needed time to build success at Penn, Yasmin Farooq’s time at the University of Washington has won two NCAA national titles and only reaching as low as fourth in the team standings. Last season was another success for the Huskies as they finished in second place in both the Varsity Eight and the team standings at the National Championships. Washington typically have a rather limited racing schedule so this race may be the only time they see the East Coast all season, so they will be wanting to lay down a statement of intent for their rivals in the Ivy League and ACC that they won’t see until a potential national championships next May in Ohio.
USRowing
Starting further down the field are three crews from USRowing. The first of these bears similarity to the crew which won a silver medal at the World Rowing Championships. These athletes would not be coming together just eight months out from an Olympic Games if they did not expect to replicate the results the US Men’s Eight achieved last year: a win in a course record time. The provisional crew list for the nominal ‘B’ eight includes other Senior medallists from Belgrade and the ‘C’ crew contains many former stars of the NCAA racing circuit and names that helped the US win both the four and the eight at the 2022 Under 23 World Championships. This is a powerhouse squad that looks to give no quarter to collegiate or international competition, will they be looking for the 1-2-3?
Brown University
Last season, Brown University could have been accused of peaking too soon. A strong set of results in early season duals and invitationals lead to domination at the Women’s Eastern Sprints, but by the Ivy League and NCAA National Championships, they seemed to have slipped back down the field. The Bears have a young group of athletes as all nine of last year’s first eight including Isla Wilding, a Scottish athlete who sat in stroke seat in just her first year with the program. This group will be wanting to make better on how they finished last season and have the benefit of a year’s experience in the top boats and a year’s development as athletes.
Princeton University
The 2023 season was an excellent one at the Shea Rowing Center as all four of Princeton University’s rowing squads had great outcomes at their National Championships with wins for both lightweight squads and bronze medals for both groups of openweights. The women’s team had a great set of results all year, highlighted by being the crew to break Texas’ almost four-year-long unbeaten run in the Varsity Eight in their three-way race with the Longhorns and Yale. The group have six of the eight rowers from their first eight in this year’s returning group including Britain’s Katherine George and the Netherlands’ Phaedra van der Molen, who both won medals at the Under 23 World Championships this summer. They will be looking to continue this fine form this season, starting that with matching their top five finish on the Charles last year.
Danish National Team
Not known for their large boats, the Danish National Team are returning to the Charles for the second year in a row. They placed sixth in this event last time down the track with what looked like nearly a full-strength boat, almost twelve seconds off the pace of the Leander crew. This summer’s World Championships in Belgrade was not awash with Danish entries with only a pair, four and lightweight double on the women’s side. The four highlighted the event with an eight-place finish, missing out on Olympic qualification by less than two seconds. Meanwhile the pair and the lightweight double placed sixteenth and fifteenth respectively. The big boat will be a change of pace for the athletes as they will be aiming to improve on their bow number of nine.
Stanford University
Buried deep down the start list are two crews from Stanford University, the class of the field in last Spring’s NCAA National Championship, they won both the first and second varsity eights to win the team championship in emphatic fashion after two years of missing out by tiebreakers. Derek Byrnes’ squad had been the fastest collegiate crew every year since 2018 but did not make the trip twelve months ago so will be placed near the back of the pack. After such sustained success the program clearly has the speed to be competitive with the front of the pack, but their success may be determined by how efficiently they can slice through the field and find clear water. They entered the NCAAs ranked number four in the country so they are no strangers to overperforming their bow number but with the ‘A’ crew carrying 34, it may be too tall a task for the Cardinal to get back to their position from previous trips to Boston.
Predictions
There is a great deal of talent across many of the boats that will be on the start line in Boston, but there seems to be a high concentration of it wearing the red, white and blue of USRowing. Leander took the title back to the UK for the first-time last year and the American National Team looks to be back with a vengeance. They have enough firepower to go one-two-three in this event and will be tossing their coxswain into Boston Harbour on Sunday night.
For the collegiate crews, I think that Stanford will just not have the clean water to claim the medal so the honours will go once again to the rising talent from the University of Pennsylvania ahead of the Washington Huskies.
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