Badger Women Rowers Head to Big Ten Championships
May 01, 2003 | Women's Rowing
The Wisconsin women's openweight crew visits Columbus, Ohio for the Big Ten Rowing Championships on Saturday, May 3 at the Griggs Reservoir on the Scioto River in Columbus.
Defending-champion Ohio State will host the fourth annual championships, first held on Lake Wingra in Madison in 1999.
Women's openweight rowing was added to the Big Ten's list of varsity sports in 1999 with six teams-Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. In 2001, Minnesota became the league's seventh team to compete in women's openweight rowing. Since then, the Big Ten Conference has established itself as one of the top rowing conferences in the nation in the past four years. Currently, four Big Ten schools rank in the US Rowing NCAA Division I Varsity Eights top-20 poll including No. 7 Michigan, No. 10 Michigan State, No. 11 Ohio State and No. 16 Iowa.
Wisconsin earned its third consecutive fourth-place finish at the Big Ten Championships last season, keeping alive its string as the only school to win the second novice eight race. The UW's other top result came in the varsity four where it finished second to Michigan State.
This year the Badgers have a pair of boats that will be No. 2 seeds at the Big Ten Championships - the first and second novice eights. The Badger second varsity eight drew the No. 3 seed, while the varsity four is seeded fourth and the second varsity eight is fifth. The UW's top boat, the varsity eight, is seeded sixth. Wisconsin boats claim seven race titles in the three years of the championships.
The morning heats will begin at 8 a.m. ET with the finals scheduled to start at noon and concluding with the varsity eight grand final at 2:45 p.m.
