With pageantry plus a windy course where anything can happen, the Head of the Charles is hated by coaches but loved by the athletes and the sport as a whole. One of the most popular events features below: the premier event for women’s eights. The field this year has plenty of Division One representation in addition to several exciting crews from around the world.
Leander Club
In the absence of the national team crews that filled out the top three 12 months ago, the 2022 champions Leander Club are the highest-placed crew to return from last year’s event and carry the number one on their bow. This is their third successive trip across the Atlantic, and with the backing of the US-based Colgan Foundation, they are likely to be returning, especially if they can continue their success rate after winning in the women’s eight in 2022 as well as the men’s double twelve months ago. The particular lineup that will be racing remains to be seen, but they retain a comfortable group and may have gained a few members as they prepare to trial for a spot in the national setup for the new Olympic cycle. If they simply return their crew from last year, they finished the season with two losses to Oxford Brookes in the final and semifinal of the open events at Henley Women’s and Royal Regattas respectively. With a clean run on the course, they will aim to retain their title, but unless they have a surprise representation from the Paris Olympic team, it’s likely the quality behind them will be too high.
Skibbreen Rowing Club
While it may have seemed like the entire town of Skibbereen was in Paris this summer, this crew of Paris Olympians has little to do with the town in County Cork. Instead, this entry is a great eight filled with lightweight athletes from around the globe. Aoife Casey has recruited an elite crew with representation from six different nations, all of whom competed in the women’s lightweight double at both the Tokyo and Paris Olympics. While these athletes have not reached the pinnacle of their respective careers in this boat class, previous experience points to the transferability of sculling into sweep as former ‘great eights’ have been rather successful at major head races around the world. The crew is not entirely new to the discipline either, as the boat is stroked by Imogen Grant, who won three Boat Races during her time at Cambridge. She will be excited to lead this crew, which is more than capable of clinching the top honours on this famous course.
Ukraine
Since the Russian invasion at the start of 2022, the Ukrainian rowing community has been loudly supported by their friends around the world, from several associations around the Netherlands supporting the rebuilding and restocking of a destroyed boathouse in Odesa to national team athletes joining programmes across Europe. Another showing of this support has been the initiatives to have Ukrainian representation in this race over the last two years. In 2022, they placed ninth in the women’s championship eight and twelve months ago they finished second in the coxed four. This year, they are back in the eight in a crew that includes their Paris Olympic team from the quad that placed fifth and several less established national team members. This crew, off the back of successful Olympic Games, will be proudly flying the flag and will be hoping to improve their performance this year, especially as they run out from third position on the start list under the steering capability of Emelie Eldracher, a Massachusetts native who coxed the US PR3 mixed four to silver at the Paris Paralympics.
University of Cambridge
For the first time since 2015, the women from University of Cambridge will be competing at the Head of the Charles. Off the back of seven successive wins in the Boat Race, the women of CUBC are riding high. A string of confident victories makes recruiting easier for Patrick Ryan , and with the expectation of a few Olympians racing on the Tideway next April, recruiting will become more important than ever. Earlier this autumn, CUBC sent a crew to race in Shanghai at the Head of the River against top level domestic and international opposition. That crew did not include any returning Olympians, given its proximity to Paris, but did showcase several top athletes who are joining the Light Blues for this campaign, and with two crews representing the club this weekend, we can expect to see some world-class speed on show for the Ely-based programme.
University of Oxford
On the other side of the coin is the University of Oxford who are on the back of a seven-race losing streak against their biggest rivals. For Alan French, this will be his first full season, during which he can recruit, select, and train the squad throughout the entire year. He will be looking to turn things around. Given the inherent difficulty in recruiting to a programme that is struggling to find its feet, it is perhaps no surprise that they do not have the calibre of names to be seeded highly by the organisers; they will set off 23rd in the start order (in comparison to Cambridge in fourth), but we are still being afforded a matchup between the two clubs. We rarely see the two programmes race in eights within an easily comparable format, and the last time it happened on the Charles was in 2014 for the 50th Head of the Charles. That day, Oxford finished fourth to Cambridge’s 19th , and while they are likely to be a fair bit closer together at the end of the race, the women in Dark Blue would be very happy if they could get one over on their rivals again this weekend.
Molesey Boat Club
The final British crew in the entry comes from Molesey Boat Club. More unknown to the Charles, the black death have sent across masters crews as well as the odd single sculler, but this year represents the first entry into the championship eights in recent history. This crew particularly draws the eye, given the organisers have opted to seed the crew into fifth place despite the fact that they did not finish that high at the Women’s Head of the River Race in the UK. This crew has an added level of talent that wasn’t present on the Tideway in March though. Off the back of her Olympic bronze medal, Holly Dunford is back and training on the Thames, bringing her Olympic stardom to the boat. With this sprinkling of elite pedigree into the boat, they will likely perform much better, but I would be surprised if they can maintain a top-five finish given the quality of crews that will be chasing them.
Yale University
On occasion, some coaches bemoan this event, drawing focus away from their baseline training and forcing selection too early in the season. Others have even suggested that winning on the Charles is counter-productive to success in the spring when it matters most. One team afflicted by this last season were the Yale Bulldogs, who were the top collegiate programme in this event 12 months ago but finished in 12thplace at the NCAA Championships in the varsity eight. This was an underwhelming performance from the proud programme who enter their 26th season under head coach Will Porter but will look to improve on that performance with four rowers returning from last year’s varsity group alongside the entirety of the second boat who finished fifth in their category in Bethel. The Bulldogs have struggled in recent years to turn elite second units into top-tier boats, but with the entire crew to work with, they are in the best possible position to break that habit.
Princeton University
A programme that had opposite fortunes last season was the Princeton Tigers. 15th overall on the Charles was unlikely to be the level they were aiming for, but they turned things around to finish fourth in the team and first varsity eight standings at the NCAA Championships seven months later. Also racing under a long-tenured head coach, Lori Dauphiny will enter year 28 with all nine members of the top boat returning from last year’s NCAA Championship, putting them in a solid position to succeed and return to the podium this time around. Their season opens on the Charles, and they will be hoping to show vital signs of improvement, but starting 13th in the field may present some challenges to having a clear run down the narrow course.
University of Michigan
A programme with possibly the longest-tenured head coach in all of Division One rowing are the Michigan Wolverines. Mark Rothstein enters year 34 at the helm in Ann Arbour as the only head coach the team has had at the varsity level. In 2024, he is joined by a new staff with a distinctly Texan flair, having appointed Fran Raggi and Rachel Raine as assistant coaches, both double national champions in burnt orange. They are not the only source of top-level experience in the boat house as they welcome the return of Abby Dent, who took a year out to trial for the Canadian Olympic squad, a process that ended with a silver medal in Paris. Rothstein has been clear as he seeks to ease Dent back into college life and give her the appropriate rest and recovery after such an intense season, but whether or not she will race this weekend, the team is well served by six returning members from last year’s first eight as they seek to perform well in the newly expanded Big Ten Conference.
University of Washington
Two women’s eights from the University of Washington will trek across the country from Seattle. One of the preeminent names in collegiate rowing, the Husky brand is known for excellence, and with 12 national titles to their name, including five in the NCAA era, they are expected to finish at the front of the field every year. Last season was disappointing as, for the first time under head coach Yasmin Farooq, they missed out on a top-four podium finish at the NCAA championships. In a changing landscape of the sport, the three-time national champion coach and former Olympic coxswain will seek to adapt and strengthen her programme to return to that high point and a strong showing in Boston will indicate that her autumn plans are working well. The Huskies return all but two of the rowers from their varsity eight from last year, and they will be hungry to get back onto the podium at the end of the season.
Brown University
This summer, with little external fanfare, John and Phoebe Murphy announced their retirement after four decades at the helm of the women’s rowing programme at Brown University. In that time, they won seven NCAA titles, more than any other programme, and had a perfect record of qualifying for every championship since its inception in 1997. Stepping away from the programme, they leave it in the hands of Tessa Gobbo, a former Olympic champion and Brown alumnae who has served as the assistant coach since 2021. The only coaching staff member to return, she is bolstered by the return of four rowers from last year’s varsity eight, alongside ten of the 12 others who raced at the NCAAs in Ohio. With their unique style and unmatched record of success, the Murphys leave big shoes to fill in Rhode Island, and the next era will begin this weekend in Boston.
University of Virginia
Another programme that said goodbye to a long-serving head coach was the University of Virginia as they bid farewell to Kevin Sauer, the only person to hold the role since the sport gained varsity status. In his place, the University recruited Wesley Ng, formerly of the University of Pennsylvania, who had built the squad into a national contender over the past few years, especially in the varsity bracket. Bringing his coaching staff with him, he will have the support of a larger and better funded athletic department with greater recruiting reach as he seeks to return the Cavaliers to the very top of the sport. He returns only four rowers from last season’s varsity eight and has not brought over any transfers from Penn, so don’t expect an immediate surge in performance but against national competition in Boston, they will begin to establish their new position in the pecking order.
Roeivereeniging Willem III
One of two crews in this event travelling from the Netherlands, Willem III represents the club scene from the Netherlands. Based on the Amstel, they finished first and third in the club eights at the Heineken Roeivierkamp last March but competed in smaller boats and composites throughout the summer. This year, they have reunited in the eight for the Amstelbeker and made it to the final as the top performing Dutch club, falling to visiting London Rowing Club by 1.7 seconds. While the crews from the two events differ slightly, they both contained Karien Robbers and Aletta Jorritsma , who competed in the pair at the Rio Olympic Games. Alongside them are graduates from top university rowing programmes, both in the Netherlands and the United States, and they will be hoping to show well against their old rivals on the Charles this weekend.
Prediction
With so much Olympic talent on board, it is impossible to look past the lightweight ‘great eight’ from Skibbereen as a prediction to finish at the top of the timesheets. For the collegiate crown, if Cambridge are deemed to be eligible, I wouldn’t be surprised if they took home that particular medal this year with the top domestic result coming from Princeton. With talent so tight and a surprise coming around every corner of the winding Charles River, that honour could go to any one of half a dozen boathouses, including some that there was no room to mention.
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