Oct. 19, 2014
BOSTON— The Wisconsin men’s rowing team raced Sunday at the 50th annual Head of the Charles in Boston.
The men were entered in two races, the championship four and championship eight. There were teams from across the world, including the United States’ own national team, pulling as hard as they could across the 4,800-meter course.
The men’s four event had 12 entries. Even against top universities and other national teams the Badgers biggest competition proved to be from their backyard, the Camp Randall Rowing Club. The Camp Randall boat placed first place, consisting of Wisconsin alumnus Tim Aghai, Anthony Altimari and Andrew Weiland. The Wisconsin four entered finished in sixth place with a time of 16:43.63, 30.48 seconds after Camp Randall.
Head coach Chris Clark reflected on the four’s results after racing ended today. “The four had a few steering issues that caused them some problems, but they got better as they went. We were happy about that because that often goes the exact opposite; if you start poorly it finishes even worse. And so that was good. They recovered and did well and there wasn’t anyone in there that had been at Head of the Charles it was a nice change. They are kind of on their way.
“Our Camp Randall boat, you notice that we’ve got Tim Aghai and Anthony Altimari in it, with a few other national team aspirants and they won again -- two years in a row -- so that was good to see. It was nice for our own guys to be chasing some of our alums.”
The championship eight accomplished what they wanted to, as well. With 36 crews entered the Badgers walked away in 17th place. Their final time was 15:03.82. Clark was pleased with today’s eight results.
“In the eight it’s always worth noting that if you look at the results and it isn’t clearly a college or university then it’s a national team. We were 10th among colleges, which isn’t bad for us, for where we’ve been. The most revealing mark for us is the first mark, which is about 1200 meters and I like to see how we do through that point. I think we were the fourth fastest college.”
Clark went on to explain, “This is the first time in a while we haven’t really emphasized the first mile so that indicates we got a lot of boat speed and that’s good, but we’re still a little raw. This is the first race we’ve had here in a few years that I felt there was nothing wrong with it, there was no major boondoggle of any kind. The coxswain did a brilliant job and he probably got us a few places by how well he steered. It was as good as I’ve seen any of our coxswains do in a long time, so that really helped.”
Clark is excited to be heading to the Princeton Chase on Oct. 26.
“It’s a real challenge and some of the same crews will be there again and we can hopefully improve a little bit. I would expect us to, and certainly the range of the race (slightly shorter, about 2 ¾ miles) will be different. So it was a decent start to the race and more promising than it has been but we’re not ready to declare victory yet, we’ve got a long way to go.”
Head of the Charles
Oct. 19, 2014
Charles River
Boston
4,800 meters
Men’s Championship Fours (12 entries)
1. Camp Randall Rowing Club, 16:13.15; 2. Cambridge, 16:19.44; 3. Washington, 16:19.51; 4. Sydney, 16:26.72; 5. FIT, 16:40.70; 6. Wisconsin, 16:43.63.
UW Lineup: Coxswain Emery Flaherty, William Bleifuss, James Letten, Kyle Smith, Laing Wise.
Men’s Championship Eights (36 entries)
1. Craftsbury,14:20.23; 2.Taurus, 14:23.59; 3. Harvard, 14:29.66; 4. USRowing, 14:29.87; 5. Washington, 14:37.94; 6. France, 14:37.94; 7. California, 14:38.10; 8. Boston University, 14:39.73; 9. Princeton, 14:41.03; 10. Yale, 14:42.99 … 17. Wisconsin, 15:03.82.
UW Lineup: Coxswain Brandt Roen, James Lueken, Peter Ginouves, Patrick Muto, George Perrett, Sebastian Amberger, Michael Knippen, Matt Sobatka, Steve Berg Jr.
