Women’s lightweight prepares for IRA Championships

May 28, 2014, 1:38 a.m.

Everything thus far has been in preparation for one weekend. And that weekend is finally here. The Stanford women’s lightweight crew left early Sunday morning for West Windsor, New Jersey, for the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) Championship Regatta, considered to be the collegiate national championship for rowing.

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Stanford’s women’s lightweight rowing team traveled to the East Coast early Sunday morning in preparation for this coming weekend’s IRA Championship Regatta, in which the Cardinal have a chance to win their fifth consecutive title. (ASHLEY WESTHEM/The Stanford Daily)

By Sunday, the lightweights will know whether the five consecutive first-place finishes that they have earned thus far, including top finishes at the PCRC Championships, Big Row and WIRA Championship Regatta, truly indicate their dominance on the water.

“That’s one of the best and worst things about being on this team — we’ve been the national champions for four years now and so there’s a lot of high expectations and all year we are working to meet and exceed those expectations as much as possible,” said sophomore Katherine Christel.

Stanford will be one of nine lightweight varsity eights competing for the IRA title and, most importantly, will be seeking its fifth consecutive national championship. Stanford will also be fielding its varsity four, which competed for the first time this year at the PCRC Championships and finished second in the open field.

The team had three hard workouts before heading east and has been tapering since then, getting mentally prepared for competition and easing up on rigorous workouts in order to be rested for the first two races on Saturday. The Card have had light training sessions at Princeton all week and will continue to adjust to the humidity — and the havoc it wreaks on their calloused hands — and the water conditions of the East Coast.

The Stanford varsity eight lightweights will be joined by a field including Boston University, Bucknell, Georgetown, MIT, Princeton, Harvard-Radcliffe, Tulsa and Wisconsin. Last year, Stanford beat Harvard-Radcliffe by open water, coming in four seconds ahead. Although Stanford remains the heavy favorite, Harvard-Radcliffe will again be one of Stanford’s top competitors this year.

The first two heats of competition for both the varsity eight and varsity four will be held on Saturday with the Grand Finals on Sunday.

Contact Ashley Westhem at awesthem ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Ashley Westhem was Editor in Chief of Vol. 248 after serving as Executive Editor and Managing Editor of Sports. She is the voice of Stanford women’s basketball for KZSU as well as The Daily’s beat writer for the team and aids in KZSU’s coverage of football. She graduated in 2016 and is currently a Communications masters student. Ashley is from Lake Tahoe, California.

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