They say there's a rainbow at the end of every storm, and that there's a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. All season long, the women's crews believed in this.
When miffed by horrid race conditions for every dual race, they refused to step down. Instead, they found inspiration and drive in one simple cheer to chide nature's wrath -- "Bring it on!" they cried.
And on super-Sprints Sunday, that mighty storm came, and so did the rainbow.
Even when a tornado warning was announced in the region, you could hear faint cheers coming from the Dartmouth bus -- "Bring it on!"
When the women finally piled out of the bus and loaded their boats, they were ready for the big showdown and the big race for all the marbles and all the glory.
In the qualifying heats they scorched their way through the crews from Yale University, Boston University and Columbia University to catapult them into the grand finals.
From that point onward it was, as Wendi Potter '96 put it, "all a matter of heart and soul."
"Going into the finals, we were all really psyched coming off some huge wins in the heats," coxswain and co-Captain Vanessa Santaga '96 said.
"In the post season polls, Yale was ranked higher than us even though we had beaten them in our dual race in the regular season," Santaga said. "So to go out there and beat them so convincingly in the heats really got us excited for the finals."
For the first 1,000 meters of the race, Santaga kept her boat composed and tried to focus on clean blade work in the face of the rough conditions.
"It was really important for us to just keep our blades in the water for as long as possible to avoid being swept by the wind," Potter said.
The race plan worked. At the halfway point of the race, the Big Green was tied in front with Brown, Princeton and Wisconsin. But it got better from here.
"We took a big move at the 1,000 meter mark and started to really pull away from Wisconsin," Santaga said. "They tried to win back their seats but we held them off. We just took off."
In the end, there was the rainbow, and there was the pot of gold so to speak. The Big Green returned to Hanover with bronze medals -- the first Sprints medals for the women's crews in 14 years.
The Brown crew headed home with the gold while Princeton boarded the buses with silver medals.
All the Big Green crews fared well in the qualifying heats and all boats made it to the finals. The third varsity four finished fifth in the grand finals while the second varsity notched a place in the petite finals.
In the novice races, the first boat came up with a big win in the petite finals while the second boat came in third.
