Lotman Challenge 2024 – Women’s Preview

Alongside the eponymous competition for world-class scullers, the Gold Cup regatta also includes racing for domestic scullers, again offering significant prize money. With open entry, it begins with a time trial over 650 metres, with the top four progressing to the final. Making the final guarantees a $2,000 payday, before a 750m side-by-side race for the top prize of $8,000. With so much money available, the best scullers in the country will line up to compete, offering brilliant racing for the spectators.

Kara Kohler

Doubling up on the start list from the main prize, Kara Kohler enters this event as the defending champion. The California-based sculler has been the US national single sculler for the last two Olympic cycles, finishing fifth in Paris this year. Unlike in many other countries, the US operates a trial system, so Kohler is forced to prove her supremacy over her domestic competition to retain that position. With this experience of winning against domestic competition, she hopes to continue it this weekend and remains in form after finishing second at the Head of the Charles. In the final round of her lengthy season, she will hope that she can defend her title before moving on to the bigger prize.

Michelle Sechser

The oldest rower in the field, Michelle Sechser remains on top form. After reaching her second consecutive Olympic final in the lightweight double, she has been active on the domestic scene this autumn since returning from Paris. At the Tuxedo Park 1886 Regatta two weeks later, she lost in the semifinal but would respond by winning in the championship single at the Head of the Charles and being the organising force behind the lightweight great eight, which raced down the course on Sunday. This weekend, the race distance will be reduced by a factor of six, but she will be looking to repeat the same outcome. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the lightweight athlete may be outmuscled by her openweight competition, but winning is habitual, as Sechser looks to prove conventional wisdom wrong.

Emily Delleman

Another winner from last weekend on the Charles is Emily Delleman, the youngest entrant in the field. A winner in the Stanford University alumnae eight, Delleman raced as part of the US quad in Paris this summer, her debut Games. Since graduating in 2020, Delleman has returned to sculling – the discipline she excelled in as a junior and was named to her first senior national team in 2022, racing the double in Poznan and the quad at the World Rowing Championships. After a year out of the team, she returned as the camp-selected crew for the Paris Olympic Games before winning at trials to earn a ticket to Paris. Back in the United States, the Iowa native hopes to start her second Olympic cycle strongly and earn some cash along the way.

Margaret Fellows

Possibly the fastest rower not on the Paris Olympic team, Maggie Fellows has been in and around the team for the past few years. In 2022, she raced at the World Rowing Championships in the quad, and in 2023, she was the spare, but following the selection camp, her only route to Paris was through the open trial in the single. She pushed Kohler the closest of all the competitors but was still well off the required pace. Instead, her focus for the summer turned to Henley Royal Regatta, where she raced in red, white and blue in The Stonor Challenge Trophy, reaching the semifinal, where the eventual champions defeated her double. Back racing against some of the Olympic squad, she will be looking to get ahead of them but will need better form than her 12^th at the Head of the Charles to do so.

Cicely Madden

Since racing in the quad at the Tokyo Olympic Games, Cicely Madden has not been named to any national team squads by US Rowing. The Cambridge Boat Club athlete has been unfortunate, missing out on invitations to camps by a few seconds through the years, and after a strong performance in the time trial, she missed out on the Paris selection camp by just one spot in the quarterfinal. Undeterred, she raced at the Olympic trials, finishing third in the single. Like Fellows, she also turned her attention to Henley Royal Regatta, where she reached the final in The Princess Royal Challenge Cup, a solid peak to her season. Racing again in the fall, she placed eighth in the championship single at the Head of the Charles and will hope to build on that performance this weekend.

Christine Cavallo

While the other entrants in this event have all represented their country at the senior level in classic rowing, Christine Cavallo is the odd one out. A former Stanford University lightweight, Cavallo shifted her focus to beach sprint rowing with the Next Level Rowing performance group. She, like many others in that group, has repeatedly won the right to wear the red, white and blue on the highest level of beach sprinting in the mixed quad in 2021 and doubling up in the mixed double and women’s solo in 2023 and 2024. Her highlight on the waves came when she won bronze in the women’s single in 2023, but she will be racing this weekend over a short distance and hoping her experience racing in the shorter formats will help her show that she can keep up with the flat-water specialists.

Prediction

With experience of winning this event and power to burn over the short course, Kara Kohler will enter this race as the favourite, but with a course of just 750m and a gold cup race to follow, there is plenty room for an upset.

About The Author

Fraser Innes

Fraser joined the JRN team in September 2022 and regularly writes about domestic and international rowing with particular specialisation on US Collegiate Rowing having launched JRN’s coverage and being a staple on the End of the Island’s series on the topic. He has been involved with the sport since 2016 at George Heriot’s School and the Universities of Glasgow and Wisconsin.

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