Crimson Shines in Warmer Weather

After long months of winter training and a spring break spent in Cambridge preparing for the season, the Harvard heavyweight crew team finally opened up its racing season with strong performances this past weekend at the San Diego Crew Classic.

“It’s great to race again,” captain Joe Medioli said. “It’s so much more fun to be racing than training and you really appreciate all the hard work you’ve done all season. Everyone looks forward to the spring season and it’s definitely the best time of the year.”

The team took to the warmer waters at Crown Point Shores Park at Mission Bay in San Diego against stiff competition—the field included defending national champion Washington as well as runner-up Stanford.

While the varsity eight placed third in its division, the second varsity eight defeated Washington and Cal’s second boats to capture the Sharp Cabrillo Cup with a time of 5:52.31.

“The race went really well,” said senior bow seat Breffny Morgan. “Our boat got off to a really clean and powerful start and the pace we set was controlled through the middle of the race, and that allowed us to hold off a strong Washington.”

The win in the finals yesterday was made all the more impressive by the fact that the Huskies defeated the Crimson by over three seconds in Saturday’s preliminary heat. Learning from Saturday’s finish of the strength of Washington’s sprint in the last 500 meters, Harvard pushed itself to create a strong advantage from the start, beginning the race with a cleaner start and upping the stroke rating up to 36 from the 34 they raced at in the prelims.

“We had a sort of relaxed sense of power,” Morgan said. “We were in control of ourselves and we knew that Washington would be fast at the end so we wanted to extend the lead through the middle.”

Unlike the second boat, the first varsity eight was unable to race its way past the defending national champions in the finals of the Copley Cup, as Harvard mustered a third-place finish behind the Huskies and Princeton.

“It was a really strong field,” senior stroke George Kitovitz said. “We had seven boats in the race that have a good shot at winning nationals. It was a good start to the season but we’re never happy when we lose.”

After a rocky start, the Crimson found itself a length down to the leaders.

“We just got absolutely killed at the start,” Kitovitz said. “That allowed some of the boats to move and get ahead of us.”

However, about 300-400 meters into the race, the varsity eight found its rhythm and walked back on the field. A long sprint at the end of the race allowed Harvard to move up into third position for a time of 5:43.89. Washington won with a time of 5:39.9.

“We’re happy and we know that we had a good race,” Medioli said. “We think we could have done better but pretty confident that we’re going to get faster as the season goes on.”

Next week, the Crimson will travel to Providence, to challenge the Bears for the Stein Cup in the first dual race of the season. Harvard reclaimed the cup last season after losing in the 2006 campaign, a defeat that broke the Crimson’s 24-race winning streak.

“Brown is always a pretty competitive matchup,” Medioli said. “They’re a pretty strong rival to some degree, but we think that given how we’ve done this weekend that they’re well within our sights.”

—Staff writer Lucy D. Chen can be reached at lucychen@fas.harvard.edu.