Another good week of racing in the books after a week which saw multiple top ten clashes and some surprising results. #4 Princeton beat #9 Penn to retain the Childs cup, who in turn beat #16 Columbia soundly. #6 Brown beat #8 Northeastern in a tighter contest to win back the Dressigacker Cup, in a race that was just slightly closer than its iteration two weeks prior at the Sarasota invitational. #5 Yale defeated #10 Dartmouth to retain the Olympic Axe in a race that was much more competitive than many expected after Dartmouth’s narrow victory over Columbia in their last outing.
Childs Cup
Princeton took a commanding six second victory over Penn, but those who watched the race will have noted that Penn lead to the 500 metre mark and were level with Princeton one kilometre in. This will be seen as an exciting show of top end sped for Al Monte’s ever impressive Penn crew, who constantly seem to hold their own against top tier talent such as Princeton. Columbia, who had sparked hopes of a renaissance season after their tight race against Dartmouth did not seem to be able to reproduce a similar level, falling 18 seconds off Princeton’s pace. Princeton won the first three eights, with Penn displaying their depth by winning the fourth and fifth varsity races. The fifth varsity race was decided by just over a fifth of a second, and such evenly matched racing is always a great spectacle. It will be exceptionally interesting to see how Penn are able to compete with Yale next week, and what that result indicates about Yales relative speed to Princeton. Viewed solely through the lens of Columbia’s result against Dartmouth, Penn ought to be the favourites against Yale but it is hard to imagine the old power falling to Penn just yet.
Dressigacker Cup
The Dressigacker Cup saw a series of races that had occurred just two weeks before, and so perhaps lacked some of the suspense that it might otherwise have commanded. Whilst the varsity result was almost exactly the same, the Northeastern 2V managed to overturn Brown. Brown once again beat Northeastern in the 3V and 4V. Northeastern race Harvard next, in a race that doesn’t promise much suspense having also occurred at Sarasota. Brown will face Dartmouth at home, where they will be looking to retain the Atalanta cup, which has resided in Hanover the last two years.
Olympic Axe
The Olympic Axe was well contested between all boats, with the largest margin in any race being a length in the 2V, with the exception of the Dartmouth 5V winning by 15 or so seconds. Otherwise Yale swept the day, although as Yale’s staff noted and those who caught the livestream saw Dartmouth’s 3V lost in heartbreaking fashion, as they were 6 seats up following a spirited mid race effort with about 80m to go when their five seat caught a boat stopping crab. Real gut wrenching stuff. This was Mike Gennaro’s first home race and first duel as head coach at Yale, something he will surely be glad to have under his belt an to have won. It will be very interesting to see how the two crews face in their races this coming weekend, as the proximity between the two varsities will shake up rankings.
Ultimately the unpredictability of US collegiate racing is part of what makes it so exciting and why us rowing fans tune in weekly, and we look forward to the release of this week’s polls.
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