Even after traveling 1796 miles across the country, CJC's rowers still couldn’t escape Mother Nature’s apparent dislike for CJC regatta competitions this spring. By the end of the first day of competition in the 2016 USRowing Youth National Championship, racing had been suspended due to wind (11:12am), schedules adjusted and events restarted (2:00pm), and then, shortly after the restart, regatta officials decided that the forecast for the weekend was iffy enough that the schedule should be compressed to allow it to finish by the end of the day on Saturday rather than Sunday afternoon. And with that decision, CJC’s first trip to Nationals ended.
For those unfamiliar with the progression of events in a large series regatta like Nationals or the Olympics, it basically functions like a double-elimination format that you might see in a large baseball or volleyball tournament. Rowing uses the term repechage (re-pe-chage) which is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a trial heat (as in rowing) in which first round losers are given another chance to qualify for the semifinals.” The theory is that a worthy competitor who is paired with another worthy competitor should not be unduly penalized by luck of the draw, but have an opportunity to fight for at least third place. For the event this weekend, that means that rowers who did not qualify for the semifinals in their time trial event based on where they finished, have another chance to race for a spot in the semi’s. Based on where a rower finished in repechage (aka “reps”) they could go into the semi’s and compete for a place in the championship finals races, qualify for the consolation finals race (aka “Final C”) or be eliminated altogether.
Now that you have a better understanding of the progression at Nationals (or now that you’re totally confused) – here’s what happened to CJC’s rowers on Friday:
Saylor rowed in the fourth time trial of the day and her time put her in an excellent position to qualify for either the semi-finals or Final C via her repechage heat which was scheduled for Saturday morning. About an hour after Saylor’s heat, the winds began to pick up. By the time Matthew and Zander launched in the first time trial for their event the water had become choppy and they had a difficult journey to the finish line. Undaunted, they discussed the conditions with Marika and began developing a plan for their repechage heat which was also scheduled for Saturday morning.
Shortly after Matthew and Zander’s event, officials suspended competition until 2pm due to wind conditions. The plan at that point was to resume the time trials at 2pm with the intention of finishing the Friday schedule about 90 minutes later than originally planned. Less than an hour later, presumably after consulting multiple weather forecasts, officials decided that things looked bleak enough for Sunday that every attempt should be made to finish the entire competition by the end of the day on Saturday. The only way to get that done was to cancel all of the Reps and move up the schedule for the semi-finals and finals to Saturday morning and afternoon. With Reps cancelled, the semi-final heats would be filled based on time trial times only vs times and place in each rep and Saylor, Zander and Matthew’s times in their time trials weren’t fast enough to qualify.
So while we’re sad that the competitive part of Saylor, Zander and Matthew’s Nationals adventure has come to an unexpectedly early end, they still made CJC history by qualifying for bids to Nationals, they put CJC "on the map" as one of only a few clubs in the country that can compete at that level – and they earned a spot for “Colorado Junior Crew” on the official 2016 USRowing Youth National Championship T-shirt!
Congratulations to all three of you, your families and to CJC for a great 2015-16 season. And let’s hope that Mother Nature decides that CJC has had enough bad regatta weather and that smooth rowing conditions are ahead for 2016-17!
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