Lightweights defend Forsburgh Cup

While the tricky six-lane, 2,000-meter Mission Bay course has been cited as overly choppy and windy in the past, the San Diego Classic changed the start time of the Grand Final race for the Copley Cup to an early Sunday start to take advantage of calmer conditions and allow the East Coast teams to take an earlier flight back home. With all the Princeton crews competing for the national championship every year, it is no surprise that the heavyweight team made the trek to San Diego to size itself up against some of the nation’s best crews.

“This year, for the first time, seven of the top 10 crews in the country were invited to San Diego for the Crew Classic in what looked like a possible preview of the national championship final,” junior Matthew Evans said. “At this early stage of the season, none of the crews had much race experience, and no one knows how fast anyone else will be, so the racing is frenetic. Everyone’s unsure how they’ll stack up — whether they’re faster off the start or stronger in the final sprint — which makes for a lot of lead changes and one exciting race.”

During the race, the Washington Huskies and the Cal Bears surged ahead for the first 1,000 meters. The Princeton heavyweights found a new life on the back stretch, however, pulling within two seconds of the Huskies and overtaking Cal.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they could not close the gap and finished second with a time of five minutes, 41.80 seconds compared to the Huskies’ 5:39.90. Harvard crossed the line in third with a time of 5:43.89, and fellow Ivy Yale finished last, just behind Stanford. Overall, there was a solid mix between the East and West Coast teams, showing a nice parity in collegiate heavyweight rowing.

“Coming in second behind Washington, last year’s national champions, things look promising,” Evans said. “Washington is clearly fast again this year despite losing a couple of guys to Olympic trials. Though we beat the reigning East Coast [champions] and archrival Harvard, they’re sure to get faster as the season progresses, so we’ll have to get back down to work if we want to remain atop the East and close the margin on Washington, who we won’t see again until Nationals. All in all, it was a promising start to the season, but it’s only the start.”

The heavyweights will race next for the Childs Cup, the oldest intercollegiate rowing cup, against Penn and Columbia next week.

One week later, Princeton travels to Boston, Mass., to face traditional New England rivals Harvard and MIT. It will be the second time that the Tigers face the Crimson this season but certainly not the last.

The men’s lightweight crew returned to its winning ways as it defended its right to the Fosburgh Cup by outpacing Georgetown and Columbia. Racing on Lake Carnegie, the lightweights posted a solid time of 6:25.1, nine seconds faster than Georgetown and 12 seconds faster than Columbia. Though the Tigers’ time was nearly 30 seconds slower than last week at Navy, the difference can be attributed to the strong helping wind in Annapolis. Princeton’s second varsity boat and novice eight also won their matchups quite handily.

The novice eight actually beat Georgetown’s first varsity boat by three seconds, which is always a good sign for the future of Princeton rowing. The lightweight varsity will compete at home again in two weeks against Rutgers and Cornell.