Rowers Shine at C.R.A.S.H.-B's

In a sweaty Agganis Arena at Boston University yesterday, hundreds of rowers awaited their chance at a mention in erging history at the annual C.R.A.S.H.-B. indoor rowing championships.

The performances by many of the Harvard and Radcliffe rowers, however, stole that chance from the rest of the crowd.

It was a day of successes, from a first in the collegiate open men’s division by senior Toby Medaris and a second place among the collegiate lightweight men going to junior Moritz Hafner to a fourth-place finish for Radcliffe heavyweight junior Laura Larsen-Strecker in the collegiate open women’s.

Medaris, who was also seventh overall in the open men’s with a time of 05:59.5, said he had been expecting to do well, as training had been “going exceptionally well.”

“A lot were under 6:10, which is a personal best for a lot of the guys and shows how hard we’ve been practicing,” Medaris said of the male heavyweights. “I think it’s the first time that Harvard has had so good and so deep a showing.”

Hafner also had words offered praise for the Harvard lightweight team as a whole, although expressed that he was “disappointed” with his own 06:18.1 second-place finish, seventh overall in the lightweight men.

“I should have won by now, at least once,” he said in reference to his third year of taking second place.

“But the team overall did pretty well,” he added. “Erging doesn’t matter all that much for the water, but it’s a good starting point, and we have a lot of horsepower in that boat.”

Harvard lightweight captain Nick Downing was also pleased.

“It was really good to see some of the younger guys step up,” he said. “It’s representative of the hard work we’ve put in on land. The ice is still very thick, and we have six weeks until our first race, so we just want to keep doing what we’re doing.”

Just missing the podium, Larsen-Strecker nevertheless had a standout performance with 06:58.8—particularly since she had not originally planned to compete, but took her teammate Danielle Thiriot’s place when Thiriot had to bow out due to injury.

“At this point in our season we haven’t really been specially trained for this event,” Larsen-Strecker said. “So it’s just sort of go and see what happens. It was a nice surprise.”

She added that the Radcliffe heavyweight entrants also performed well overall.

“Even the people who were a little disappointed know they’re going to go out and do better next time,” she said.

The C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s are 27 years old this year and involve racing 2000 meters on an ergometer in conditions that are less than ideal, as Hafner described.

“It’s a tough, tough race because there are so many people and the arena is warm and the air is kind of stuffy,” he said. “Before the race you feel pretty shitty, and then during the race you feel best, and then by the end you feel pretty shitty again.”

However bad they felt last night, the Harvard and Radcliffe crews’ performances at the event bode well for a season to come that may leave them all feeling quite the opposite of “shitty” at its end.

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.