The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Trials decided the remaining eight of the 14 crews that either are qualified already or hoping to qualify for this summer’s Olympic Games, as well as two Para boats for the Paralympic Games.

Single sculler Kara Kohler and the men’s and women’s pairs of Oliver Bubb and Billy Bender and Jess Thoenness and Azja Czajkowski will race in Paris by virtue of winning Olympic trials in the previously qualified boat classes.

The winning men’s and women’s quads, men’s single, men’s lightweight and open doubles, and the Para PR1 men’s single and PR2 mixed double all now go to Lucerne, Switzerland, for the World Rowing Final Olympic & Paralympic Qualification Regatta, May 19 to 21, where they will have to finish in the top two to earn places for Paris.

“It’s a relief,” said Kohler, after winning the singles trial against Community Rowing, Inc.’s Maggie Fellows, who had won the winter speed order in February on the same Nathan Benderson Park course in Sarasota, Fla.

Kohler, fourth at last year’s world championships, will become a three-time Olympian, having won a bronze medal in the women’s quad in London and finished ninth in the single in Tokyo. Fellows goes home, having chosen to pursue the single to the end rather than accept an invitation to selection camp for the quad.

“That’s a hard case,” said USRowing head coach Josy Verdonkschot. “In the end, it’s a personal decision.” But the Olympic chief would have liked to have had the talents of Fellows in the mix for the women’s quad.

“It’s not like a computer game, where you can move everybody in the desired direction. Looking at it from her perspective, the part that I totally understand is she was going for a qualified spot.”

The winning pairs were athletes who were cut unexpectedly from the fours and eights, especially since less-accomplished rowers who placed below them in the February pairs speed order were selected instead. Although both pairs won the trials by open water, they weren’t cut from the big boats to make great Olympic pairs. Once that happened, though, they were guided in their choices of partners for the trials.

“We tried to help athletes who didn’t make big boats decide about combinations to make sure we gave our best athletes the best opportunity,” said Verdonkschot.

Craftsbury Green Racing Project’s Jacob Plihal won the men’s single trial by three seconds over Saugatuck’s Casey Fuller, with Penn AC’s Cedar Cunningham third. The U.S. has not qualified the men’s single for the Olympics since 2012 (Ken Jurkowski, 24th), and the event is typically one of the most competitive at the final qualifier.

The men’s double of Ben Davison and Sorin Koszyk, who missed Olympic qualification at last year’s Worlds after a sloppy race in the quarterfinals, won the right to race at the final qualifier with a 35-second trials win over the only other entry of World Beach Sprint Finals champions Christopher Bak and Kory Rogers of Next Level Rowing.

The lightweight men’s double of Columbia University grad Sam Melvin and Dartmouth’s Cooper Tuckerman won its trial convincingly for the chance to qualify in Lucerne. The women’s lightweight double is one of eight already-qualified Olympic events for the U.S., and the crew of Michelle Sechser and Molly Reckford was named through the Olympic selection camp held in Sarasota in March.

The U.S. men’s quad that finished ninth at last year’s Worlds—only the top seven fours and quads qualified for the Olympics—won the only close final of the trials, beating the other U.S. Training Center/Penn AC combo quad by half a second.

The women’s quad of Lauren O’Connor, Teal Cohen, Emily Delleman, and Grace Jones won its final by over seven seconds and, like the men’s quad, will travel to Lucerne in an attempt to finish in the top two of the final qualifying regatta. In slow conditions—a light headwind but little chop—both quads raced to 91 percent of Verdonkschot’s “Competitive Standard Time,” a promising sign for Olympic qualification, if not medals.

Two Para boats raced unopposed at trials, with Andrew Mangan winning the right to race for Paralympic qualification in the PR1 men’s single scull and Russell Gernaat and Madison Eberhard going in the PR2 mixed double.

There were no entries for the PR1 women’s single, and the U.S. has already qualified and named crews for the other two of five Paralympic events, the PR3 mixed double and PR3 mixed four with coxswain.

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials concluded the series of training camps, February speed order, Olympic selection camp, and trials preparations at Nathan Benderson Park. The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee will officially name the Olympic and Paralympic teams June 7 and July 1, respectively. 

While the DI ranking remained relatively consistent, DII and DIII both saw some significant shakeups at the top in this week’s Pocock CRCA Coaches Poll. Embry-Riddle, on the strength of their performance at last weekend’s Knecht Cup, jumped from fifth to second in the DII poll while Wesleyan dropped from first to third in the DIII poll after losing to #1 Tufts, formerly ranked #2.

The IRCA/IRA Coaches Poll – Week 2 has been released, with Harvard holding on to the top spot in the both the DI Heavyweight and Lightweight Varsity Eight polls, while Wesleyan still sits atop the DIII rankings.

Rowing is a beautiful, elegantly simple sport: The first boat across the line wins. There are no judged points, no time-outs, and no substitutions. We race to win, with no room for debate about the result, which is decided on the water.

Off the water, coaches should leave plenty of room for debate, especially regarding non-rowing matters. A coach is a teacher, and most rowers are student-athletes. Our sport is but one part of a person’s development as a member of society, and as Madeline Davis Tully points out in her Coaching Development column on page 63, coaches should create a welcoming environment for rowers of all kinds by not taking a stand on the social issues that have distracted so many in our sport from the actual rowing over the past few years.

Now–spring and summer–is when our races matter, when the trophies are awarded, and when championships are determined, by racing and by crossing the line first.

A lot goes in to the roughly 260 strokes it takes to cover the 2,000 meters of these victories and championships. Hours of training over the four years of a school career—or the eight or more years of an Olympic journey—are behind each and every stroke of a six-minute race.

Only one crew gets to be the best at the final regatta, and what all the best have in common are three keys to success: great athletes guided by great coaches with great organizational support. In this issue, we feature two programs, one at each end of the years-long process of harnessing those elements to develop successful crews.

Deerfield Academy, a school as old as our country, found immediate success switching from racing in coxed fours to eights last year, but it came after years of building.

This year, on the NCAA Division I level, UCF is beginning the process, putting great organizational support behind a great coach, Mara Allen, in her first year of developing great athletes in Orlando.

Also this year, as pictured and explained in Big News, beginning on page 25, great U.S. athletes have won the opportunity to race against the world’s best rowers coached by great coaches with great organizational support at this summer’s Olympics and Paralympics in Paris.

CHERRY HILL, N.J. – The top two varsity eight boats earned gold medals and put together dominant performances for the La Salle men’s rowing team at Knecht Cup on Sunday. Each of the two crews earned victories in their semifinal races and cruised to wins in the grand finals.

The gold medals were the first in the eight categories in program history, and marked the second straight year the Explorers have medaled in the varsity 8 and second varsity 8 (bronze in 2023).

Additionally, Emily Perry competed in the women’s single competition and earned silver for the Explorers.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Perry took to the water early on Sunday, and crossed in a time of 9:12.08, just 3.65 seconds behind Dominican’s single to earn silver.
• Later in the morning, the second varsity eight rowed out of lane six and cruised to a win by nearly 10 seconds ahead of Michigan to move into the grand final.
• The top varsity boat, who entered Sunday ranked 18th in the country, faced Trinity in the semifinal round and defeated that crew by nearly five seconds.
• Trinity entered the weekend as the No. 2 nationally ranked team in Division II/III, according to the IRA/IRCA.
• The 2V8 race was delayed due to equipment malfunction, putting the first varsity in position to earn the day’s first medal.
• The top squad, coxed by graduate student Trevor Fawcett, did not disappoint and earned a victory over No. 23 Temple, No. 24 Colgate, and Trinity.
• In the final race of the day, the 2V8 jumped out to a big lead and did not look back as it once again won by nearly five seconds, defeating Trinity and Embry-Riddle.
• The varsity four participated in a straight final, finishing fourth and narrowly out of medal contention.

RESULTS
Second Varsity 8 – Heat 2

1. La Salle – 6:00.90
2. Michigan – 6:10.38
3. Marist A – 6:11.03

Varsity 8 – Heat 1

1. La Salle – 5:52.13
2. Trinity – 5:56.89
3. Stetson – 6:00.31

Varsity 4 – Heat 2 (Two Final Rounds)

1. Temple A – 6:40.79
2. Oklahoma City – 6:50.00
3. La Salle – 6:52.41

Varsity 8 – Final

1. La Salle – 5:56.39
2. Temple – 5:58.18
3. Trinity – 5:58.30

Second Varsity 8 – Final

1. La Salle – 6:01.95
2. Trinity – 6:06.48
3. Embry-Riddle – 6:06.57