This continues a great summer for the Dartmouth heavyweight crew program. Earlier in the summer, Dominic Seiterle '98 was named to the Canadian heavyweight eight that will be competing in Beijing.
The Americans dominated the field, as they swept the heats and the semifinals before winning the finals by open water. In the finals, the Americans secured the gold with a time of 5:49.42. Canada placed second with a time of 5:53.30 and Poland crossed the line in 5:54.57 for third place.
Bordeau couldn't find anything to complain about for his boat's performance.
"I'm completely satisfied with our performance, I had a strong suspicion that they would be able to do this," Bordeau said. "It was very satisfying to be able to achieve this result. To be honest, I think that they may have had another gear that they didn't need."
In the first 500 meters, the Estonian and Polish boats got off to a quick start and had a slight lead on the Americans.
However, by the 1,000 meter mark of the race, the American boat had put almost 1.5 second on lead on the second-place Poles. By the 1,500 meter mark the United States had opened up a three-second lead on the second-place Canadians and the crew maintained that lead to the end.
It was sweet redemption for Silas Stafford and Alex Osborne of Stanford, and Charlie Cole of Oxford, who were on last year's fourth-place crew.
In preparing for the world championships, the U-23 boat faced the challenge of putting together a fast boat in a short amount of time.
"The single biggest challenge is the short timespan we have from selecting the team and training them. This year, we had three members from the Wisconsin team, who won the national championships, as our stern three," he said. "It was a matter of adding speed and power to the rhythm that they set, rather than starting the boat from scratch."
Bordeau's boat was also able to adjust quickly to the German climate, and the long travel was not an issue.
"We were in Princeton to do pieces with the Olympic eight, and then we flew to Germany. Anytime you go overseas, there are a few days where you're going to be jet-lagged. The rowers knew it was coming, and we spent a few days getting the rust off," he said. "The weather was predictable Northern European weather, which is to say that it was completely unpredictable. The guys were very mature, and there was nothing they couldn't handle."
The athletes featured in the boat were some of the best rowers in their age group. Traditionally, the United States has fared well in heavyweight crew, and its best athletes row in the eight.
"The eight is usually our priority boat. Some countries focus on their fours or their sculling boats, but we've always focused on the eights. No one gets up to go get a hot dog during the eights race " it's a very American thing," Bordeau said.
Also representing Dartmouth at Brandenburg was Anthony Fahden '08, who rowed in the lightweight straight four for the United States. The American straight four placed ninth in the competition, with the Spanish boat taking the victory in the finals.
Several former Big Green rowers will be competing in international events over the next several weeks, including Seiterle. Joni Nichols '81 and Matt Muffelman '03 are currently competing in the World Championships in Linz, Austria. Nichols is the stroke for the American lightweight pair, and Muffelman is the stroke for the lightweight eight.
Bordeau mentioned that we could see some of the athletes from this boat in the 2012 Olympics in London.
"The guys who were invited were selected based on their national team potential. There are definitely a few bonafide studs in there, and the fact that we won by open water says a lot about the boat," he said. "Some may be invited to train at the Princeton Rowing Center, and one member will be going to Cambridge to take part in the Oxford-Cambridge race. Out of the guys who are going to Beijing, there were guys that were in the U-23 boat."
