(08-10-2016, 01:37 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:[quote author=2 for 2028 link=topic=15401.msg167457#msg167457 date=1470838270]Fullmetal, I believe either you or VG discussed strategy in terms of putting together first and second boats for NCAA championship. Do you have any insight that you can provide in terms of putting together an Olympic rowing team. For example, how do the women's pairs rowers compare to those on the eight? Or does it come down to sculling vs. sweep? Do teams that are not as deep as the US women put their best rowers in the pairs of fours? Can someone be really good as an individual or in a pair, but not good when part of a bigger crew?
There's an art to this kind of thing, and there are several factors that play into how you construct a full lineup.Â
Process-oriented factors:
1) Is this boat going to be a trials-selected boat?
2) Is this boat going to be selected from a camp process?
Here are your team-oriented factors:
1) How much elite depth do you have?
2) What are your competitors' priority boats, and how good are those?
3) Are your numbers better in sculling or sweeping?
The selection process is rather byzantine, as detailed in the infographic here:
https://megankalmoe.com/2016/01/17/how-t...ic-team/. Terminology: event abbreviations are composed of gender (M/W), number of rowers (1, 2, 4, 8), and boat class (x indicates a sculling boat, - indicates a sweep boat without coxswain, + indicates a sweep boat with coxswain). L means lightweight; the default is openweight (or heavyweight).
In essence, your best small boat crews will select themselves by virtue of performance, and your big boats are generally selected through a camp. Big boats are usually the eights and the fours/quads. A complicating factor: a nation may earn an Olympic qualifying spot via World Championships from the year before an Olympic regatta, but the crew that earned that spot may not be the same crew selected for the Olympic regatta.
If I understand your question correctly though, it is a combination of guesswork and trust in your athletes with an overall goal of maximizing medal count. Figure out if your horses are faster than theirs. Pick your priority boats and put in the lineup that you think will be fastest by the time the Olympics rolls around. (NB: In the US, athletes talk about the perils of peaking for selection trials and then not having enough for the Olympics or Worlds. US trials are generally held closer to the Olympics than any other nation's selections.)Â
To pick your lineups, you look at erg scores (fitness), seat racing (measure of relative speed gained/lost per switch of athlete pairs between two crews), and to some extent, experience--whether you're trying to season a youngster or count on a veteran's poise. This process needs to be transparent to the athletes throughout the camp selection process, or else you end up with a pretty toxic atmosphere (see David Halberstam's The Amateurs. Nihil novi.) Finally, yes, you do have to consider which side sweep rowers can row well.
The pairs/eights issue is a fun one. The US has, in the past, doubled up their pair into the eight, but that requires two very special athletic specimens capable of handling that. Even better if they can win their heats in both events and skip straight to the semifinals. Pairs require far better technique than the eight does, and it requires two rowers who can row an asymmetric boat together well (at least one has to be able to steer well!). So we say in rowing that if you can row a pair (or a single), you can row just about any other boat. It's rare that someone who can really make a pair move wouldn't be able to contribute to an eight, but the converse is not always true. This year the women's pair was selected for World Cup representation by NSR, and at the World Cup (not to be confused with the World Championships), the USA1 pair did well enough to earn the US berth to Rio (they accepted; there was a USA2 as well iirc). I think the actual US berth was granted via Worlds last year...
Obviously sweep rowers tend to row only sweep boats, so their options are limited. Scullers tend to be able to sweep as well as scull, so most pre-elite rowers pick up sculling as soon as they leave college (which is mostly sweeping).
If you're a smaller nation, you do tend to prioritize the smaller boats because that's just how many bodies you have. Croatia, for instance, has a winning M2x (won '15 Worlds) but no other such stars (the US did not qualify a M2x). GB prioritized the M4- this cycle, as did the USA. NZL has a superb M1x and M2-. In fact, the NZL men's pair is so dominant, I don't think any other nation dared prioritize that boat. Look at Worlds from the year before and see what entries/crews were entered from which nations--that's usually a great indicator of what they'll do the next year for the Olympics. But if you know their lineups, you can also make guesses based on fitness (erg scores) and past performance as to whether the boat is stacked or not. These are only guesses though. The GER M2x contains Marcel Hacker, who used to be a regular medal contender in the single but came into the double this year. They failed to qualify for the A-final, which had to have been crushing. Likewise, the '15 Worlds champ NZL W2x were just edged out of the A-final by 0.05 seconds...by the US. So you never know who's going to show up/peak at the right time.
The Euro nations (plus commonwealth nations) tend to rule the small boats because of rowing's earlier exposure to kids there (and lack of distraction by revenue sports). USA, GBR, NED, CAN, and GER tend to rule the men's eights. The USA women rule the women's eights, and everyone else picks up the leftovers (CAN, etc.). Notable exceptions: Cuba's Angel Fournier Rodriguez in the M1x could be in the mix. China has a crop of state-sponsored athletes seasoned over the last few years by international competition. South Africa won the LM4- with a black rower in 2012, which was great for the sport.Â
I'm rambling at this point--is there anything in particular I didn't cover that you were looking for?
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No, thanks. I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.Â
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