To determine the top 25 collegiate crews in the United States, each team was assigned relative weights for competitive speed, and a proprietary formula produced an overall score for each program, with the top 25 published here.

Right from the start, we know there will be howls of complaint about a university like Texas with a great NCAA women’s program not making the top 10 of the 2023 Rowing News Top 25 Overall College Programs. We can’t emphasize “overall” enough.

While the Longhorns finished a commendable fourth at the NCAAs—a result that would be the highlight of most rowing careers and included victory for the Texas varsity four—they didn’t score a single point in our overall ranking in the varsity heavyweight men’s, lightweight men’s, or lightweight women’s categories. Texas doesn’t have varsity programs in those three categories, although they certainly have the resources for it. That’s a choice.

Texas Crew, its club program, had some good results at the ACRA regatta, but those points weren’t enough to bring the overall score up to the level of universities that support more complete and nationally competitive rowing programs for men and women. The same is true of SMU this year and will likely be true in the years to come of many other universities that support only openweight women’s varsities.

The NCAA championships, which are for openweight women’s varsities only, are decided on team scores, while the other national championships are based on the individual varsity eights alone. The NCAA’s championship structure adds another complication to how we determine the ranking with its “automatic qualifiers” (the winners of 11 conference championships qualify automatically for the 22-school Division I field, and the remaining 11 spots are selected at large by a committee).

The result is that a program like Harvard/Radcliffe, fifth at this year’s Ivy League Championships, gets left out of the championship—and our previous ranking system—while slower, automatically qualified schools are in.

In this year’s system, we’ve added “fitting” to the process, awarding ranking points to NCAA Division I programs not invited to the championship, based on spring results against crews that were.

These rankings rely exclusively on demonstrated speed in 2,000-meter racing at season-culminating championships, with the exception of the aforementioned NCAA adjustments. They reflect the relative speed of the overall rowing programs at each college and not the quality of the experience for the student-athletes.

3. Yale University

Yale’s consistent excellence across the three categories of openweight women, heavyweight men, and lightweight men continued this year, with the heavies finishing fourth and the lightweight men sixth at the IRA. Combining the fifth-place NCAA finish by the women (tied for fourth on points) and grand-final speed across a nearly complete program (Yale lacks a women’s lightweight varsity) makes the Elis the third-best overall rowing college in America.

The post Rowing News – Top 25 of 2023: Number 3 appeared first on Rowing News.

To determine the top 25 collegiate crews in the United States, each team was assigned relative weights for competitive speed, and a proprietary formula produced an overall score for each program, with the top 25 published here.

Right from the start, we know there will be howls of complaint about a university like Texas with a great NCAA women’s program not making the top 10 of the 2023 Rowing News Top 25 Overall College Programs. We can’t emphasize “overall” enough.

While the Longhorns finished a commendable fourth at the NCAAs—a result that would be the highlight of most rowing careers and included victory for the Texas varsity four—they didn’t score a single point in our overall ranking in the varsity heavyweight men’s, lightweight men’s, or lightweight women’s categories. Texas doesn’t have varsity programs in those three categories, although they certainly have the resources for it. That’s a choice.

Texas Crew, its club program, had some good results at the ACRA regatta, but those points weren’t enough to bring the overall score up to the level of universities that support more complete and nationally competitive rowing programs for men and women. The same is true of SMU this year and will likely be true in the years to come of many other universities that support only openweight women’s varsities.

The NCAA championships, which are for openweight women’s varsities only, are decided on team scores, while the other national championships are based on the individual varsity eights alone. The NCAA’s championship structure adds another complication to how we determine the ranking with its “automatic qualifiers” (the winners of 11 conference championships qualify automatically for the 22-school Division I field, and the remaining 11 spots are selected at large by a committee).

The result is that a program like Harvard/Radcliffe, fifth at this year’s Ivy League Championships, gets left out of the championship—and our previous ranking system—while slower, automatically qualified schools are in.

In this year’s system, we’ve added “fitting” to the process, awarding ranking points to NCAA Division I programs not invited to the championship, based on spring results against crews that were.

These rankings rely exclusively on demonstrated speed in 2,000-meter racing at season-culminating championships, with the exception of the aforementioned NCAA adjustments. They reflect the relative speed of the overall rowing programs at each college and not the quality of the experience for the student-athletes.

4. Stanford University

The Stanford openweight women recovered from distinct losses to Texas at the San Diego Crew Classic to turn its season around and beat the two-time defending NCAA-champion Longhorns finally at the end of the season. That national championship, supported by the Cardinal lightweight womens’ silver medal and heavyweight men’s eighth-place finish at the IRA, leads to Stanford’s overall fourth-best ranking.

The post Rowing News – Top 25 of 2023: Number 4 appeared first on Rowing News.

To determine the top 25 collegiate crews in the United States, each team was assigned relative weights for competitive speed, and a proprietary formula produced an overall score for each program, with the top 25 published here.

Right from the start, we know there will be howls of complaint about a university like Texas with a great NCAA women’s program not making the top 10 of the 2023 Rowing News Top 25 Overall College Programs. We can’t emphasize “overall” enough.

While the Longhorns finished a commendable fourth at the NCAAs—a result that would be the highlight of most rowing careers and included victory for the Texas varsity four—they didn’t score a single point in our overall ranking in the varsity heavyweight men’s, lightweight men’s, or lightweight women’s categories. Texas doesn’t have varsity programs in those three categories, although they certainly have the resources for it. That’s a choice.

Texas Crew, its club program, had some good results at the ACRA regatta, but those points weren’t enough to bring the overall score up to the level of universities that support more complete and nationally competitive rowing programs for men and women. The same is true of SMU this year and will likely be true in the years to come of many other universities that support only openweight women’s varsities.

The NCAA championships, which are for openweight women’s varsities only, are decided on team scores, while the other national championships are based on the individual varsity eights alone. The NCAA’s championship structure adds another complication to how we determine the ranking with its “automatic qualifiers” (the winners of 11 conference championships qualify automatically for the 22-school Division I field, and the remaining 11 spots are selected at large by a committee).

The result is that a program like Harvard/Radcliffe, fifth at this year’s Ivy League Championships, gets left out of the championship—and our previous ranking system—while slower, automatically qualified schools are in.

In this year’s system, we’ve added “fitting” to the process, awarding ranking points to NCAA Division I programs not invited to the championship, based on spring results against crews that were.

These rankings rely exclusively on demonstrated speed in 2,000-meter racing at season-culminating championships, with the exception of the aforementioned NCAA adjustments. They reflect the relative speed of the overall rowing programs at each college and not the quality of the experience for the student-athletes.

8. Syracuse University

The Syracuse women may have felt some frustration with a laudable 13th-place team finish at the NCAAs following one of the Orange’s best spring campaigns ever. Combined with the heavyweight men’s strong fifth-place race at the IRA, Syracuse earns eighth place overall as a rowing institution and will surprise no one by finishing even better next year.

The post Rowing News – Top 25 of 2023: Number 8 appeared first on Rowing News.

To determine the top 25 collegiate crews in the United States, each team was assigned relative weights for competitive speed, and a proprietary formula produced an overall score for each program, with the top 25 published here.

Right from the start, we know there will be howls of complaint about a university like Texas with a great NCAA women’s program not making the top 10 of the 2023 Rowing News Top 25 Overall College Programs. We can’t emphasize “overall” enough.

While the Longhorns finished a commendable fourth at the NCAAs—a result that would be the highlight of most rowing careers and included victory for the Texas varsity four—they didn’t score a single point in our overall ranking in the varsity heavyweight men’s, lightweight men’s, or lightweight women’s categories. Texas doesn’t have varsity programs in those three categories, although they certainly have the resources for it. That’s a choice.

Texas Crew, its club program, had some good results at the ACRA regatta, but those points weren’t enough to bring the overall score up to the level of universities that support more complete and nationally competitive rowing programs for men and women. The same is true of SMU this year and will likely be true in the years to come of many other universities that support only openweight women’s varsities.

The NCAA championships, which are for openweight women’s varsities only, are decided on team scores, while the other national championships are based on the individual varsity eights alone. The NCAA’s championship structure adds another complication to how we determine the ranking with its “automatic qualifiers” (the winners of 11 conference championships qualify automatically for the 22-school Division I field, and the remaining 11 spots are selected at large by a committee).

The result is that a program like Harvard/Radcliffe, fifth at this year’s Ivy League Championships, gets left out of the championship—and our previous ranking system—while slower, automatically qualified schools are in.

In this year’s system, we’ve added “fitting” to the process, awarding ranking points to NCAA Division I programs not invited to the championship, based on spring results against crews that were.

These rankings rely exclusively on demonstrated speed in 2,000-meter racing at season-culminating championships, with the exception of the aforementioned NCAA adjustments. They reflect the relative speed of the overall rowing programs at each college and not the quality of the experience for the student-athletes.

10. Harvard/Radcliffe University

A top-10 overall ranking for the Crimson results from a complete program consistently racing well, if not always winning, against the best colleges in the country in all four Division I varsity categories. Radcliffe, as the women’s crews continue to be known, failed to secure an invite to the NCAA championship regatta after a fifth-place finish at the Ivy League Championship, which still awards its championship based on the varsity-eight final. (Rutgers was invited, despite losing to Radcliffe during the regular season.) The lightweight men’s IRA silver medal and the lightweight women’s fifth-place countered the heavyweight men’s ninth-place finish at the IRA to keep Harvard/Radcliffe in the overall top 10.

The post Rowing News – Top 25 of 2023: Number 9 appeared first on Rowing News.

To determine the top 25 collegiate crews in the United States, each team was assigned relative weights for competitive speed, and a proprietary formula produced an overall score for each program, with the top 25 published here.

Right from the start, we know there will be howls of complaint about a university like Texas with a great NCAA women’s program not making the top 10 of the 2023 Rowing News Top 25 Overall College Programs. We can’t emphasize “overall” enough.

While the Longhorns finished a commendable fourth at the NCAAs—a result that would be the highlight of most rowing careers and included victory for the Texas varsity four—they didn’t score a single point in our overall ranking in the varsity heavyweight men’s, lightweight men’s, or lightweight women’s categories. Texas doesn’t have varsity programs in those three categories, although they certainly have the resources for it. That’s a choice.

Texas Crew, its club program, had some good results at the ACRA regatta, but those points weren’t enough to bring the overall score up to the level of universities that support more complete and nationally competitive rowing programs for men and women. The same is true of SMU this year and will likely be true in the years to come of many other universities that support only openweight women’s varsities.

The NCAA championships, which are for openweight women’s varsities only, are decided on team scores, while the other national championships are based on the individual varsity eights alone. The NCAA’s championship structure adds another complication to how we determine the ranking with its “automatic qualifiers” (the winners of 11 conference championships qualify automatically for the 22-school Division I field, and the remaining 11 spots are selected at large by a committee).

The result is that a program like Harvard/Radcliffe, fifth at this year’s Ivy League Championships, gets left out of the championship—and our previous ranking system—while slower, automatically qualified schools are in.

In this year’s system, we’ve added “fitting” to the process, awarding ranking points to NCAA Division I programs not invited to the championship, based on spring results against crews that were.

These rankings rely exclusively on demonstrated speed in 2,000-meter racing at season-culminating championships, with the exception of the aforementioned NCAA adjustments. They reflect the relative speed of the overall rowing programs at each college and not the quality of the experience for the student-athletes.

10. Northeastern University

The Huskies’ heavyweight men came through what is often the best racing in all of collegiate rowing, the IRA semifinals, to earn a grand-final appearance that led Northeastern into the top 10 overall. The women made it to the NCAA Championship as the winner of the Colonial Athletic Conference and finished 18th of 22.

The post Rowing News – Top 25 of 2023: Number 10 appeared first on Rowing News.

The 2023 Best Of series features the athletes, events, and moments that mattered in the year in rowing.

Athlete of the Year: Karolien Florijn

Undefeated in the single scull for the current Olympic quadrennium, The Netherland’s reigning world champion isn’t just winning races; she’s doing so usually by open water against fast competition, including one of the sport’s best ever: four-time Olympian (it’ll be five in Paris) and defending champion Emma Twigg.

The Dutch phenom is the daughter of Olympic rowers and has been sculling since age 14. Her brother, Finn, sculls in the Dutch men’s quad, which won all its heats and finals at both Lucerne and Worlds this year. She won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in the four before switching to the single and wrapped up this year’s overall World Rowing Cup trophy after the second of three regattas.

Florijn doesn’t rely on just her genes and long limbs, though. She sculls hard, emptying the tank early and often in big races. At this year’s world-championship final, her technique began falling apart after she’d blasted out to take the lead from the start, but she still won in rough conditions against the reigning Olympic champion by over five seconds.

Florijn has been nominated for World Rowing’s Women’s Crew of the Year alongside Great Britain’s lightweight double and Romania’s eight—both worthy crews, but their events are nowhere near as deep as the field Florijn races regularly and beats handily.

The post Best of 2023 – Athlete of the Year appeared first on Rowing News.

In 2019, we wrote: “Casual rowing fans can be forgiven for not knowing who Oliver Zeidler is.” A full Olympic quadrennium later, there are no excuses. The giant German swimmer-turned-sculler notched another championship year in 2023, seizing the world championship from The Netherland’s Simon Van Dorp after winning Henley’s Diamond Challenge Sculls in July “easily”—Henley’s official term for margins over five lengths.

It wasn’t a perfect year for Zeidler. At the European Rowing Championships in May, he finished third behind Dutch winner Lennart Van Lierop and the defending Olympic champion, Greece’s Stefanos Ntouskos. Zeidler finished second in his first heat at Lucerne but then won his quarterfinal and semifinal races before completing his 2023 Rowing World Cup sweep—winning in Zagreb, Varese, and Lucerne.

At the world championships, defending champion Zeidler won his heat, quarterfinal, semifinal, and the final. Van Lierop raced in the Dutch quad that won and countryman Simon Van Dorp won the silver in the single. New Zealand’s Thomas Mackintosh got his bowball across the line less than a quarter-second ahead of Ntouskos for the bronze.

Less than two and half seconds separated the top four at Worlds, and elite athletes don’t get slower usually for the Olympics, so Zeidler will have plenty of competition again in Paris. But as the two-time defending world champ, he enters as the favorite.

The post Best of 2023 — Male Athlete of the Year appeared first on Rowing News.

The fastest boat in the world defended its title successfully as world champions in Belgrade, adding to its European Championship and Grand Challenge Cup honors at the Henley Royal Regatta. It was “a tough season,” according to crew member Sholto Carnegie (Yale ’18), one in which the GB eight barely outsprinted—by 0.05 seconds—the impressive Romanian eight at the Euros and finished second in Lucerne to the Australian men’s eight that trained in Europe all summer.

But the British big boat put things right in Belgrade, winning both its heat and the final over the second-place Dutch (there were only 10 entries, so no quarter- or semifinals) at the Olympic-qualifying Worlds in 5:24.2, six seconds off of the world-best time of 5:19.2 set by the U.S. in 2018.

The post Best of 2023 — Crew of the Year appeared first on Rowing News.

The 2023 Best Of series features the athletes, events, and moments that mattered in the year in rowing.

Crew of the Year Honorable Mention

The San Diego Crew Classic trademarked the motto “The Rowing Season Starts Here,” but this year, as in so many others, when it came to women’s youth rowing, Marin owned it. Marin won its Crew Classic Youth Cup heat by 17 seconds and the final by about a length at the start of the season and the USRowing Youth National Championship over Greenwich at the end of the season. Greenwich then went overseas to win the Henley Royal Regatta in a tight final over Deerfield Academy, the top U.S. school (not club) crew.

Coach Sandy Armstrong’s perennially fast youth crews won on multiple levels at Youth Nationals: under-19, under-16, and on the boys’ side as well. She’s been the girls head coach and executive director of the Marin Rowing Association for 37 years and credits her staff with adapting to the new age-based categories of Youth Nationals.

“The staff is pretty deep; everybody probably could coach each other’s team successfully,” Armstrong said. “We stuck with trying to keep like ages together and like grades together for a little bit, but each season is bringing new information we can apply to the next season.”

The post Best of 2023 – Crew of the Year Honorable Mention appeared first on Rowing News.

The 2023 Best Of series features the athletes, events, and moments that mattered in the year in rowing.

Coach of the Year 

The Golden Bears repeated as IRA national champions, winning the program’s 19th title in an overwhelming display of speed and depth. Head coach Scott Frandsen’s crews won the heavyweight varsity four, third-varsity eight, second-varsity eight, varsity eight, and Ten Eyck points trophy.

“It’s been a full team effort from top to bottom, with the varsity eight leading the charge,” said Frandsen, emphasizing as usual buy-in by his whole squad and the broad support of others.  “A lot of credit goes to my staff and everyone in our administration who has helped us all year. We had an outstanding group of student-athletes on the team, and the generation that came before them laid the foundation for this team culture to be possible.”

That support has been earned by Frandsen, a Cal oarsman himself, through relentless hard work and constant relationship-building that culminated in a $10 million gift from the Rogers Family Foundation in partnership with the Friends of Cal Crew to endow the men’s rowing program.

Winning a national championship is a tremendous accomplishment, but playing a key role in securing your program’s long-term future is an even greater achievement. Frandsen did both this year, with modesty and grace.

The post Best of 2023 – Coach of the Year appeared first on Rowing News.