Heavyweights Win Big at Henley

Making a triumphant comeback and shocking English fans, the Crimson men's varsity heavyweight crew this Sunday stole the prestigious Royal Henley Regatta title from the University of London.

The team's mood Sunday was a dramatic swing from just three weeks ago, when the Crimson heavyweights suffered a tremendous upset at the hands of the University of Wisconsin in the national championship race in Cincinnati.

Indeed, it was a sullen team captain--Jon Bernstein '90--who just two days before his team left for England vowed that the Crimson would make up for that disappointing loss at Cincinnati by winning at the Henley.

"We're looking forward to it--eagerly looking forward to it," he told The Crimson just before he and his team left for the Thames.

The victory was Harvard's first in seven years, and this one was especially sweet.

Not only was it a chance for the Crimson team to redeem their near-perfect record before the Cincinnati defeat--aside from the championship, they had won every major race this year--but it was also an opportunity to redress past greivances.

Last year at the Henley, during what Bernstein described as probably one of the team's best races, the Crimson team lost the famous Ladies Challenge Plate award because a stick was caught under the boat's shell's fin. The stick had obstructed the boat from moving at full speed, acting, in essence, as an anchor, weighing the boat down despite the team's considerable efforts to move ahead.

Though the Crimson team called for a re-row, they did not win the second race. Most likely this second loss was due to the team's fatigue, Bernstein said.

So this year, the captain said his team wanted to win the Ladies Challenge Plate--the second most prestigious prize for eights at the Henley Regatta--fair and square.

And the Crimson team did just that. Pulling ahead of their English rivals by a sweeping six minutes and 35seconds, Harvard claimed the title--another to addto the long list of wins accumulated by all threeof Harvard's men's crew teams this year.

The Harvard JV team, however, did not fare aswell, losing to the Nottinghamshire lightweightsin the final leg in the race for the ThamesChallenge Cup. The Nottinghamshire team beat theCrimson in the race for the Ladies Challenge Platethe year before.

The victory for the heavyweights came as a bigsurprise for a team that, according to Bernstein,was predicted to have a "rebuilding year" in 1990.The Crimson graduated six of its eight varsityrowers, and half of its JV boat the year before