Varsity Eight Takes Fifth at IRAs - Printable Version
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Varsity Eight Takes Fifth at IRAs - Canalejas - 05-29-2021
https://gostanford.com/news/2021/5/29/mens-rowing-varsity-eight-takes-fifth-at-iras.aspx
Quote:Bringing a close to the 2021 campaign, Stanford placed fifth in the varsity eight on Saturday at the IRA Championships. The second varsity took third in the petite final to take ninth overall, while the varsity four won the third level final to take 14th.
The varsity eight, which was one of three Pac-12 schools to reach the grand final, crossed the line with a time of 6:12.8. There was a race for the podium over the final stretch, but Dartmouth and Syracuse clipped the Cardinal by five and two seconds, respectively. The Cardinal finished four seconds clear of sixth-place Northeastern.
The second varsity qualified for the petite final, taking third in the race to finish ninth overall. The Cardinal second varsity was also the third-highest finishing team from the Pac-12, stopping the clock at 6:44.7.
The varsity four qualified for the third-level final, and won a sprint to the finish over Mercyhurst by less than two tenths of a second. The Cardinal crossed the line first in 7:21.3, edging the challengers in lane two.
Results
V8 – Grand Final
1. Washington – 5:59.7
2. California – 6:02.9
3. Dartmouth – 6:07.6
4. Syracuse – 6:10.8
5. Stanford – 6:12.8
6. Northeastern – 6:16.6
2V8 – Petite Final
1. George Washington – 6:37.9
2. Brown – 6:41.8
3. Stanford – 6:44.7
4. Navy – 6:47.1
5. Wisconsin – 6:51.0
6. Cornell – 6:53.2
V4 – Third Level
1. Stanford – 7:21.3
2. Mercyhurst – 7:21.5
3. George Washington – 7:27.5
4. Colgate – 7:29.3
5. Princeton – 7:34.3
6. UC San Diego – 7:44.6
RE: Varsity Eight Takes Fifth at IRAs - fullmetal - 05-29-2021
So let's set the stage for this weekend's IRA championship regatta: normally a three-day regatta, covid concerns led to a change in the way the regatta was run, and to be fair, this change is something that's becoming more and more prevalent in high-level rowing: time trials.
Traditionally, teams were ranked coming into the regatta based on season-long performance and gut feeling/past reputation. This is just a fact of life when you're dealing with an old school, deeply-traditioned sport like rowing -- reputation and past performance matters. Teams used to be seeded into heats based on rankings, and top heat finishers advanced straight to different semifinals while the heat losers battled it out in the repechages (reps) for a second chance at advancing to the top semifinals. Some semis offered a path to advance to the grand final, some semis did not, and you wanted to qualify for the semifinals that did offer a chance to advance.
If you were unfairly seeded into a heat full of fast boats, you had no chance but to run through the reps for a chance at the top semifinals (traditionally known as the A/B semifinals, where the top 3 from each of those semis advanced to the grand or A final, and the losers were relegated to the petite or B final). With the added burden of having raced an extra race in the rep, you were much less likely to advance from the semifinal, and this is not the fairest situation.
This year, the committee eliminated the concept of heats and repechages in order to shorten the regatta by one day, and they did so by using time trials to seed the semifinals. One real bonus of time trials -- they're much fairer than gut-feel, reputation-laced rankings (dominated by east coast voters, of course). Time trials are where each crew rows a slightly shorter course against the clock, and all times are compared to determine future progression. Boats may begin rowing the shortened course at ~30 second intervals, and start/finish times are recorded. In the rare case where one boat actually makes up the 30 sec difference, the boat being overtaken is required to yield by moving into a different lane; faster crews have the right of way. Some time trials run crews in alternating lanes at shorter intervals (this format was used at the IRA this weekend), some run one lane with slightly longer intervals.
One additional benefit of time trials -- in case weather causes cancellation of future races, the results of time trials can even be used to award medals. Crews are incentivized to race time trials as if they matter :)
Stanford's varsity, seeded ninth, finished third in the time trial. Dartmouth, seeded tenth, finished second in the time trial. This was a monumental upset in terms of rankings. Ninth and tenth places are definitely "not contenders" because rowing isn't a sport of variability or volatility, and that's how the coaches' poll and committee saw Stanford and Dartmouth. But the time trial proved otherwise (Stanford finished 6th in the second varsity eight time trial), and so it was that Stanford made its mark on this year's IRA regatta.
It's true that some teams are better at racing time trials than others, and it's true that some teams might have sandbagged the time trials anyway. In the varsity four event, the afternoon semifinals were canceled because of conditions, and those finals were seeded directly from the time trials.
In the varsity eight event, the semifinals for the top eighteen crews (from time trials) were A/B/C semis in that the top two finishers advanced to the grand, the next two were relegated to the petites, and the last two were relegated to the third level final. Crews that finished in places #19-26 raced for the D/E semifinals. Santa Clara scratched their whole team due to a positive covid test.
Stanford drew #4 Cal (time trial finishing) in their heat as well as #9 Navy, #10 Brown, #11 Temple, and #19 Oregon State. Cal stormed out to an early lead (the Bears finished 3.5 sec ahead of Stanford at the Pac-12 championships), and Stanford held off a hard-charging Brown crew the whole way down the course to claim the second grand final spot by a margin of 0.514 seconds (which is about a 4 point margin of victory in basketball, I'd say). Cal won the semi 1.7 sec ahead of Stanford (let's call that a 5-6 point margin of victory in basketball). These things are not linear, and they don't really translate well, but most people don't understand how much effort is required to make up seconds in rowing because even that effort doesn't scale linearly.
Conditions in the grand final were not great. There was rain; the video drones were grounded. Wind and waves were running about, and the youtube feed showed cameras with raindrop occasionally landing on a lens. Even the seeding of the lanes was changed to favor the semifinal winners and reflect their times. From highest to lowest seeding in the grand, it was UW, Cal, Dartmouth, Syracuse, Stanford, and Northeastern, and that's how they finished, with somewhat regular margins of 2-4 sec between each lane. Note that these six crews were indeed also the top six finishers in the time trial, and their times over 1900m were less than 2 sec apart from 1st through 6th place finishers. And yet in the wild conditions this morning, the 6th place boat finished almost 17 seconds back over a 2000 meter race. It seems disappointing that a boat finishing third in the time trial slipped to fifth (and went from 0.88 sec back of UW over 1900m to 13.15 sec back over 2000m), but the crew gave great effort to throw down in the time trial, fight off powerhouse Brown in the semifinal to advance to the grand, and shoot par in the final.
First glimpse of the varsity eight during the time trial: https://youtu.be/ITGg6l1daB4?t=202
Varsity eight semifinal: https://youtu.be/G6zR5bI9yWw?t=1275
Varsity eight final: https://youtu.be/UtVZlvoK4CA?t=7615
Let's talk about the second varsity eight. Stanford finished sixth in their time trial, which was also higher than their seeding (8th). However, their semifinal draw included #1 seed and eventual winner UW, and Stanford ended up about 4.2 sec behind #7 Princeton in their semifinal to lose out on that second grand final advancement spot. Maybe Princeton is just bad at time trials. In their petite final, third-seeded Stanford got off the line third and stayed in that position through the end of the race while second-seeded Brown raced out of the blocks, only to be caught by first-seeded George Washington midway through the race and thoroughly passed. Of note, this final's participants finished the time trial in this order: Stanford, GWU, Navy, Brown, Wisconsin, Cornell.
2V in the time trial: https://youtu.be/ITGg6l1daB4?t=2636
More 2V time trial: https://youtu.be/ITGg6l1daB4?t=2699
Another 2V shot in the time trial: https://youtu.be/ITGg6l1daB4?t=2862
2V semifinal: https://youtu.be/G6zR5bI9yWw?t=3139
The 2V petite final: https://youtu.be/UtVZlvoK4CA?t=4062
Stanford was able to bring a varsity four at the last moment as there were roster issues that almost prevented the boat from coming together. In their time trial, the four finished 16th out of 20, which was...perhaps disappointing but understandable given the nature of their last-second inclusion. The semifinals for this event were scheduled for Friday afternoon and scratched due to weather, so the seedings for the finals were taken directly from the results of the time trial. At the start of their C final, Stanford trailed Mercyhurst in second place but caught up almost even around halfway through the course. It was a neck and neck dual between the two boats until the very end, when Stanford's sprint just edged out Mercyhurst to win the C final by 0.177 seconds. Even though it was the third level final, the race itself was pretty exciting and a true measure of effort for these guys.
V4 in the time trial: https://youtu.be/ITGg6l1daB4?t=7230
More V4 in the time trial: https://youtu.be/ITGg6l1daB4?t=7296
The V4+ third level final: https://youtu.be/UtVZlvoK4CA?t=8240
Final notes: I'll look at the lightweight women later. NCAA varsity women's finals are up next tomorrow starting at 10am EST being streamed through the ncaa.com website. Lanes 2-7 were used in this regatta, so don't let that throw you. The semifinals were seeded with favored crews in lanes 3-4 proceeding outward from there. The finals were seeded with the favored crews on the left. The commentary in this video was pretty typical of rowing commentary...very golf-like in some regards. The production quality left something to be desired with video and sound quality sometimes skipping out. But hey, at least there's video.
The dropping and reinstating of Stanford's men's and lightweight women's rowing programs carved out a hole in their recruiting efforts. There will basically be no incoming recruiting class next season for these teams, and they'll be dealing with those effects for a few years to come. But this weekend's regatta was a success for both teams and will be something to hold on to during the next few years.
RE: Varsity Eight Takes Fifth at IRAs - fullmetal - 05-29-2021
Also, full race results can be found here: http://results.regattatiming.com/backoffice/webpages/staticRaceResults.jsp?raceId=535
RE: Varsity Eight Takes Fifth at IRAs - Jamesy - 05-29-2021
Thanks for the detailed write up! On the light weight women's side, looks like there were only two boats in the V8 and Stanford only raced in the v2 and v4. Were we missing that many people that we couldn't field an eight women boat?