SRA wins Crew of the Year 2011!
Each year, at the end of the year, the most popular rowing website www.row2K.com runs an online poll for the crew of the year. In 2011, the Saratoga Rowing Assoc. pair of Lizzy Fitzhenry and Kristina Wagner were nominated. After a week of back and forth voting, the SRA pair edged out the other 14 nominees with the closest competition coming from the University of California undefeated and Royal Henley winning freshmen mens eight. (SRA got over 30% of the 8500 votes - to see the full results please visit www.row2K.com/polls). The following is a little history on the accomplishments of the SRA pair. Theirs is a long story, but I will pick it up summer of 2010. Each summer SRA goes to the Canadian Henley Regatta. It is the largest regatta this side of the Atlantic, about a week in duration and featuring crews from Canada, USA, and many central and south american countries. During the summer of 2010, Kristi and Lizzy formed this pair (2 person boat with one oar each) and decided they would invest more than the normal one a day practices. With a full summer of training 2-a-days, they went to the Canadian Henley in good shape to compete for a Henley Gold (SRA had only won one gold medal back in 2003 at this extremely competitive event). After advancing to the finals in the Junior Women's Pair, they were winning the race when they had equipment breakage, and they had to stop rowing. After investing about 20 hours per week all summer for this race, they were, as you can imagine, devastated. Not wanting to go home with such disappointment, they entered the Championship level event (knowing they would not win... considering there were a few former Olympians in the event). After finishing a spectacular fourth place, the Canadian National Team coach saw them land on the dock and congratulated them on their performance. Disappointed with the end result of the summer, but encouraged with the potential speed after the champ event, they decided to invest fully in the 2011 campaign. Beginning in Dec of 2010, Kristi and Lizzy began training in earnest for the following summer, they worked out in the morning before school and then again in the afternoon after school. They traveled to Florida over Christmas break to train on the water. They traveled to Florida over Feb break to train on the water. Then, after school ended they got back into the 20+ hour/week training on the water in the pair... all summer. These girls were doing ELITE levels of training. At the end of the summer they went to the Canadian Henley to take care of the unfinished business from the previous year. And that they did! Not only did the girls win the Jr pair, they also won the Under 23 pair and the Championship pair... and won all of them by more than 14 seconds (an eternity in rowing). These 2 girls are fantastic athletes, driven and powerful, but most importantly, they were committed to a goal and invested DEEPLY. The crew of the year title was well deserved. They are now freshmen at Harvard and Yale, and I am hoping we will see them row for USA in the not too distant future.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 2:58PM 