After months of hard training the entire Purdue Crew team finally traveled together to Rockford, Illinois for the Head of the Rock, the novices first college regatta. The first all team regatta always carries with it a special, electric energy, particularly for anyone that hasn't seen or experienced it before. The logistics themselves are impressive to watch, whether it's getting the (almost) entire 140 member college crew team down to the boathouse and boarded unto three coach busses in time for a 5am departure, the flurry of ordered chaos upon arriving at the regatta as athletes rush to unload and set up two boat trailers and a food trailer worth of equipment before racing, to the gathering together each racing lineup for the prerace boat pep talk, where the boat's coxswain talks their crew through the warmup and race plans, each mind focused and heart beating together in shared, singular purpose.
The results after a day of racing 30 Purdue Crew entries were impressive, with most athletes coming away from the weekend wearing a medal. Highlights of racing included the novice men sweeping the Collegiate Novice 8+, Collegiate Lightweight 8+, and Collegiate Novice 4+ categories, the novice women winning the Collegiate Novice 8+, the varsity men winning the Open 8+, Open 4+, and just 2 seconds behind the Collegiate 8+ winner, and the varsity women placing under a second behind the women's Collegiate 8+ winner.
But in perhaps the most anticipated, hard-fought, and certainly most light-hearted racing of the day, Purdue Crew earned the top 4 spots (of 12) in the Open mixed 8+ category. Boiler Up!
Pictures of racing are included on the instagram post linked below:
|