Columbia’s three rowing teams closed out their fall seasons at the Princeton 3-Mile Chase this Sunday.
The men’s heavyweight team had a successful race, with the varsity eight A boat coming in third out of 40—the same finish it had last year. The Lions finished behind Princeton and Yale with a time of 13:23.475.
“We hoped we might win in the A boat, but Princeton and Yale did a better job over the course of the three miles so we have to be content with third, which is still a pretty good result, and I think the guys raced well and raced very hard,” head coach Mike Zimmer said.
Columbia was ahead of Princeton for the first half of the race, but the Tigers caught up in the second part, using their familiarity with the course and a slower start to their advantage. Princeton won the race with a time of 13:18.686.
“Princeton did a really good job of getting a little bit more out of their base cadence in the early part of the race,” Zimmer said. “They were rowing with slightly fewer strokes per minute than we were ... Once we came around the last turn and made for the finish they had a little more room to elevate their cadence and take slightly more strokes, and they got a little more out of it.”
The varsity eight B boat also fared well, finishing 15th, in front of A boats from Penn, Trinity, and MIT.
Columbia’s varsity four A boat finished seventh out of 50 boats, coming in ahead of a boat from Cornell.
Zimmer uses these results as a measure to help the team prepare for the winter training period. “Winter training will primarily work on physical preparation,” he said. “A lot of volume, a lot of distance, a lot of hard work, honestly. We don’t get any opportunity to go on the water, so it’s a time when the guys are focused primarily on making some physiological changes that are going to help them be stronger.”
The men’s lightweight team also fared well, finishing fifth out of 31 with a time of 13:33.998, beating Cornell and Dartmouth and improving on last year’s finish of 10th place. Harvard came in second and Princeton finished first on their home course with a time of 13:19.685.
The lightweight four A boat also did well, coming in sixth.
“We’ll use the winter to get stronger, tougher, and more fit,” lightweight head coach Scott Alwin said. “Our guys know they have a lot of work ahead of them, since the level of spring racing is much higher than fall racing.”
The women’s varsity eight team came in 22nd out of 55 with a time of 16:16.183. Yale took first place with a time of 14:46.323. Teams from Virginia, Princeton, and Brown were also in the top five. The women’s varsity four finished in 17th place, edging out a boat from Georgetown.
“The next four months are critical—we’ll use them to maximize our power and endurance, and then apply both better on the water,” women’s head coach Melanie Onufrieff said. “Our team likes to work hard, so it will be good times.”
Both of the men’s and the women’s teams will be back to start their spring season Mar. 20 at the Governor’s Cup in Florida.
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