July 25, 2011

World Rowing Under 23 Championships Results

STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford women's rowers collected a total of four medals at the 2011 World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Amsterdam over the weekend. Grace Luczak '11 won gold with the U.S. pair while, along with Erika Roddy '11, taking bronze with the U.S. eight, and Anna Dawson '13 collected a silver medal with New Zealand's eight.

Mechelle Vezie '11 also participated at the event, rowing with Great Britain's eight that finished sixth in the grand final.

For Luczak the medals brought her total haul over three Under 23 championships appearances to four. She previously won gold with the U.S. eight last year in Belarus and captured silver at the 2009 event in the Czech Republic. Roddy adds her bronze medal to the silver she won as part of that same U.S. eight two years ago in the Czech Republic.

Dawson's silver Sunday was the first Under 23 medal of her career, while Vezie had previously captured gold with the British eight in 2009.

Luczak, rowing in the women's pair with Felice Mueller, captured the first medal of the event amongst the Stanford rowers Saturday, as she and Mueller set a world-best time of 7:05.13, three boat lengths ahead of second-place Romania. The final time also smashed the previous U.S. under 23 pair record by nine seconds.

Luczak and Mueller trailed Romania by just a few tenths of a second halfway down the 2,000-meter course before turning it on at the 1,250-meter mark. The pair jumped into the lead and continued to pull away into open water to its record-setting victory.

"Camp [to select the women's pair] was really competitive and we really owe it to all our U.S. teammates for pushing us," Luczak told USRowing.org after the race.

"The conditions associated with a world-best time can often require some of the best technical rowing you've got and the U.S. women's pair definitely stepped up and ran away with it," said Stanford women's rowing head coach Yasmin Farooq. "Knowing Grace, she took all of that enthusiasm from the victory right into the eight final where she and Erika won the bronze with their fellow USA teammates. Having four Stanford women lineup in a final on the elite stage is exciting and a testament to the hard work they've put in together and with their respective teams this summer.

"And now, adding Anna's silver medal in the eight for New Zealand, they have all been on that U23 World Championship medal podium," Farooq continued. "Best yet, I know that when the ceremonies were over, they all got together and had a big hug. We are all extremely proud of them."

In the women's eight class, all three boats with Stanford rowers (U.S., Great Britain, New Zealand) advanced to Sunday's final.

The U.S. opened the race with the lead by the opening 500 meters, but ceded the advantage to Canada by the halfway point. The Canadian crew would not relinquish its lead over the final half of the course, while Dawson and the New Zealand crew nosed ahead of the U.S. going into the sprint.

New Zealand would finish second in a time of 6:06.02, three seconds behind Canada and nearly a second and a half faster than the U.S. boat's time of 6:07.37. Vezie and the Great Britain eight took sixth with a time of 6:19.62.