Women's open crew victorious at Head of the Charles

Imagine finding out you just rowed the best race of your life 30 minutes after you crossed the finish line.

This is exactly what happened to the women's open eight this weekend at the Head of the Charles regatta in Cambridge, Mass. Each race is a head race, meaning that boats stagger their starts and that each boat is essentially competing against the clock.

The women's open crew came into Sunday's Head of the Charles with a relaxed attitude, looking to see how an inexperienced boat with two freshmen would fair against some of the best crews in the entire world.

What the Tigers did was pull off a huge upset at America's most famous and well-attended regatta, winning the three-mile race in a time of 16 minutes, 37 seconds in front of more than 200,000 spectators.

"It's nice to have that much excitement at a crew event," junior Kate Phillips said. "Going under the bridges with people cheering for you makes it a lot of fun to race."

Adrenaline burst

The win — which was the first in history for the women's open boat at the Head of the Charles — came as a surprise for the young team.

"The first half of the race was all adrenaline," sophomore stroke Sasha Suda said. "The second half, everyone started to feel the pain, but there was still a lot of adrenaline and a lot of guts.

"This has to be the best moment of my rowing life."

The Head of the Charles is traditionally won by national teams, who put out the best rowers in the world to compete. As this is an Olympic year, however, some of the world's top teams — including the Americans — chose not to race. Even though some teams decided not to attend, the competition was still stiff for the Tigers, who faced the training squads of both the German and Dutch national teams.

Princeton was unsure of its final position until nearly 30 minutes after the race had been completed.

The Tigers, however, had gauged their progress against the other teams during the race and knew they were in a good position.

After passing last year's national champion, Brown, toward the end of the course, the Tigers also realized they had gained ground on their stiffest competition — the German training squad.

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"Before we started we rowed past the Germans and our jaws all dropped when we saw how big they were," Suda said. "When [senior coxswain] Courtney [Biesecker] told us that we were gaining on the Germans I thought either I went out too quickly or something special was happening."

Something special had happened by the time the results were posted and the Tigers were first, four seconds ahead of the Germans, seven ahead of the Netherlands, and 22 up on their closest collegiate competitor — Michigan.

The women's open squad also sent a four-person boat to Cambridge and had a successful outcome, finishing as the top American university team and fifth overall.

"We exceeded expectations as a team," senior Ellie Pearson — who rowed in the four — said. "This is really a great thing for the program to put out two strong boats this early in the season."

The other Princeton crews also had strong showings at the Head of the Charles, considering the Tigers start later than most college crews.

The men's lightweight eight finished in second place, 11 seconds behind Ivy-rival Yale in a time of 15:43. The Tigers would have finished even closer — less than one second behind the the Elis — if they had not been penalized 10 seconds for hitting a buoy during the race.

Steering was also a problem for the men's heavyweight crew, which dropped from sixth to 10th after hitting the 13th buoy.

"We stayed close with all of the other college squads," senior captain Mark Flickinger said.

The steering was difficult on the crowded course which is configured differently than the courses that the teams race on in the important spring regattas.

"The Head of the Charles is the hardest race to cox all year," Biesecker said. "It gets complicated in terms of all the bridges and turns."

The final Princeton eight to compete was the women's lightweight squad, who finished third overall in 18:21. The Tigers were beaten by defending national champion Wisconsin and the Riverside Rowing Club.