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News From the Alumni House
Alumni Face Off Against Harvard and Others in Beijing
Rowing Regatta
May
2002
by James Donahue
James
Donahue '00 lives in Boston and works for the U.S. Treasury Department.
As a
Yale athlete, you have several occasions over four years to prove
your excellence against that school from Cambridge. But
few athletes have the opportunity to compete against Harvard after
graduation. This past September, nine heavyweight Yale alumni oarsmen
were granted such an opportunity -- in China.
After
successfully bidding for the 2008 Olympic Games, the Chinese government
and Motorola teamed up to sponsor the first Motorola University
Rowing Regatta to promote the Olympics in China. Yale, Harvard,
Cambridge, and Oxford were invited to send their rowing teams to
compete against Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan, and Jiatong universities.
The winner would be determined in a series of 6,000-meter dual races
on the narrow, twisting Kunyu River.
Due
to school policies, Harvard and Yale were unable to send enrolled
students. Dave Vogel '71, head coach of Yale's heavyweight crew
team, sent out word that he was looking for alumni who were up to
the task of racing four miles against some of the best rowers in
the world. In the end, Vogel selected ten rowers, seven of whom
had at some point in their undergraduate careers won the four-mile
race against Harvard in New London, Connecticut. The lineup included
Steven Pritzker '99, Alex Reid '99, Eirik Lilledahl '98, Jim Donahue
'00, Rob Welsh '01, Dr. Michael Curi '96, Josh Lerner '01, Mark
McCusker '99, Lucas McLoughlin '99, and Phil Mann '01.
For
the preliminaries held on Saturday, Yale drew Oxford. Only the four
fastest times of the day would race for the title of champion on
Sunday, so a solid performance was critical. Fortunately, the powerful
Yale crew moved quickly away from Oxford within the first mile and
won by two minutes.
The
Harvard crew, powered by five Olympians, beat a strong Cambridge
boat by over a minute, while Tsinghua dominated their competition.
A draw Saturday night decided the match-ups for the following day
-- Yale would face Tsinghua, while Harvard drew Cambridge.
Yale
and Tsinghua arrived early the next morning at the flat course crowded
with over 300,000 spectators on the shores. As the referee lined
up the crews, the crowd grew silent only to open up with a deafening
roar at the sound of the starting pistol. Yale and Tsinghua got
off to a blazing start, both boats striking at 38 strokes per minute
and settling to a 33.
The
Yale alumni boat jumped out to an early lead of about 9 seats only
to lose it moments later when Tsinghua raised their stroke count
and moved back to within two seats of even. The two talented crews
battled back and forth over the next two miles until the first turn
of the course.
Yale,
positioned to take the disadvantageous outside of the turn, edged
in front of Tsinghua to capture the inside of the turn. Tsinghua,
relentless in pursuit, continued to cut into Yale's lead. Remarkably,
the alumni crew and coxswain were able to maneuver through the turn,
maintaining a lead into the last 750 meters in which both crews
were poised to sprint for victory. Yale held off Tsinghua's advances
in the last 500 meters and won by a scant 3.43 seconds, finishing
in a time of 19 minutes and 8 seconds. The time was approximately
90 seconds faster than the mark posted the day before by the Yale
team. Rowers in both boats collapsed in exhaustion.
Although
Yale had won this race, it was not until Harvard and Cambridge finished
that the winner of the regatta was announced. With all four boats
by the awards platform, the race organizers announced Yale as the
victor. The alumni, racing in what many of them considered to be
one of the hardest races in their lives, were overcome with joy
with the realization that not only were they once again racing for
Yale, but that many of them had once again beaten Harvard in another
race for the ages. |
