Gone Four Good

September 03, 2011

BLED, Slovenia – Just before launching for the final of the women’s four, the U.S.  crew talked about what it meant to them to be competing in an event that will never be run at the world championships again.

For the third year in a row, less than seven countries entered a boat in the race, and under FISA rules, that means that it is eliminated from competition in future world championships.

“We thought about that,” said Sara Hendershot (West Simsbury, Conn.), who, along with Emily Regan (Buffalo, N.Y.), Kara Kohler (Clayton, Calif.) and Sarah Zelenka (Itasca, Ill.), was rowing in her first senior worlds.

“We were kind of thinking, if we can win this race, we’ll be the women’s champions forever.”

Ink their names in the record books.

After winning the preliminary race for lanes on Thursday, the U.S. women repeated the feat and rowed out of second place in the first quarter to first place in the final 1,500 meters to capture the gold medal at the 2011 World Rowing Championships on Lake Bled.

“We were excited about that, but we’re not excited that the four is not going to be here in the future, because we think it’s a really great boat for development,” Hendershot said.

“I’m really excited,” she said about winning. “This is my first senior world championships, so it’s been a really good experience so far. We hit a really good rhythm and we felt confident because of that rhythm, but The Netherlands and Australia never made it easy for us. And Australia came with a crazy sprint at the end, so we were not feeling comfortable at that point and really had to go for it.”

For countries looking to develop championship rowers, having to perform like that the first time out at a world championship, is experience that cannot be gained in any other situation.

And for a coach like Tom Terhaar, not having the four in the world championships is a loss.

“It’s a shame, because it’s been good to us,” Terhaar said. “It’s been our development boat. Kids who row in college don’t have time in the small boat and it’s a perfect transition to the small boat. It’s a little bit of a shame because it’s a good event.”

To the governing body that overseas the sport of rowing, it’s more than a loss, it’s a red flag.

“We are very concerned about women’s rowing,” said FISA executive director Matt Smith. “We had three women’s eights at the junior world championships, we had three women’s eights at the second world cup regatta, and this is a cause for concern for us about women’s sweep rowing.

“We’re not happy about losing the event,” he said. “This is a clear rule in our rules of racing about popularity of an event, and we view it as a sign of concern.”

Following the world championship every year, FISA holds a congress to discuss issues like this one.

“We’re going to talk about it in congress, and we’re going to form a working group to examine the situation of women’s sweep rowing and women’s participation. We view this as a sign of concern about women’s sweep rowing about the world,” said Smith.

Ed Moran

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