Today’s update is from former team president Riley Hazard who graduated this May and will ultimately be off to work in Melbourne, Australia after stopping in Italy (bike tour) and Uganda (some work) on his way there from Great Britain after Henley concludes.
At the Draw in Henley’s town hall, announced by Sir Steve Redgrave himself
We woke up earlier than usual this morning to scrimmage Brown University’s 8+, who are entered in the Ladies’ Challenge Plate this year. Brown are a strong crew and placed 6th in the IRA grand final. We pieced twice from the start line to the barrier (637m) and once for the last section of the race. Conditions were rough but we held on for some great pieces. Good luck to the Bears and we look forward to having Luke, Brown 3-seat Grant Bitler’s brother, with us on the novice team this fall.
After lunch we headed to the Henley Town Hall to watch the draw. The room was pack as crews awaited their first round matchups. For each event, Henley Royal chairman and 5-time Olympic gold medalist, Sir Steve Redgrave, announced the selected crews and randomly placed them in certain spots in the draw. Crews are selected to prevent the most competitive crews from racing in the first round and to spread out the international crews. The remaining crews were randomly chosen to fill up the draw.
Athletes lining up for the egg (golf ball) and spoon race; many strategies were employed, most effective proved to be to “drop” your ball by throwing it farther down the course and the good old fashioned “take out your opponent”
In the Temple Challenge Cup (8+) our crew was fortunate to be selected and will face off against Goldie of Cambridge University Boat Club. We will race on Wednesday with race time to be announced shortly.
In the Prince Albert Challenge Cup (4+) our crew was also selected and will race Colgate University (USA) on Thursday.
We finished off the day with a short row, a proper English roast for dinner and the Nettledbed Funny Hat Olympics, complete with darts, croquet, kubb, a limerick challenge (about their pair partner), and many other fun games. Our medalists were Frank Vasquez (rising 4th year), Keith Casscells-Hamby (recently reached alumni status), and Calvin Heimberg (rising 4th year), in first to third respectively.
We are excited for to begin racing as we move into town this week.
If you’d like to see more of our adventure, you can also follow our travels on twitter (@VirginiaRowing) and instagram (@vmensrowing).
