UCLA Athletics – UCLA Rowing action photos, UCLA Boathouse, Marina Del Rey, CA.
November 28th, 2011
Copyright Don Liebig/ASUCLA
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Every two years, each nation’s top athletes unite to represent their country in the Olympic Games. But before this ultimate accomplishment can be reached, many competitors find themselves on junior national teams ““ a path toward the world’s most elite international competition.
Two members of the UCLA women’s rowing team ““ rising senior Britta Syverson and rising junior Carolina Paini ““ were selected to compete in the Under-23 World Championships in Trakai, Lithuania. The event allows younger, less experienced rowers to train and compete in an arena that aids these aspiring athletes.
“It’s the (senior) national team stepping stone,” said coach Amy Fuller Kearney.
The senior national team competes at the highest global competition, either in the Olympic Games or at the World Championships.
Syverson and Paini competed with the junior U-23 National Team more than a week ago. The boats in which they competed finished in 10th and fourth, respectively.
“It’s definitely a development program for the national team,” Syverson said. “Usually, in a non-Olympic year, the assistant national team coaches are the coaches for the U-23 teams, so they look at you.”
As last week’s competition was held during an Olympic year, the assistant coaches were unavailable to work with the U-23 national team.
“In an Olympic year, the focus is on the older athletes on the senior team,” assistant coach Justin Price said. “There (are) not going to be a lot of younger athletes that make the senior team, because they are not on that level.”
Although these rowers may not possess the expertise of Olympic athletes, each junior national team boasts the country’s top women’s rowers who are under 23 years of age. This platform provides a way for athletes such as Syverson and Paini to experience competitive environments outside of NCAA regulations.
One key difference between American college and international competitions is in the rowing techniques used. NCAA competition allows each college to have two boats of eight rowers and one boat of four. Because of this structure, many rowers who are trained in the U.S. learn to sweep row first.
In sweep rowing, each rower is equipped with one oar, whereas sculling, used in international competitions, involves two oars per rower. While the extra oar provides considerably more speed and power, it also requires that the athletes maintain a higher level of coordination with the other rowers in the boat.
“It is a really impressive feat to go from sweep rowing in college to making the national team in the sculling boat in one summer like Carolina did or like Britta has done in the last two summers,” Fuller Kearney said.
Syverson rowed in the quadruple sculls boat, which features four rowers per boat, after having raced with the double sculls, which has only two rowers, in last year’s U-23 Championship. Paini earned a seat in this year’s lightweight quadruple sculls in her first year on the U-23 National team.
Both Syverson and Paini had very little time to train with their teammates before competing overseas.
“(With sculling), in order to get a boat working, you have to have time together with the people, so that’s what we were lacking, definitely,” Syverson said.
“The other countries spend all year working in the same boats all year just for this race. We were in the same boat two weeks before the race. Our competition definitely had a leg up on us.”
While Syverson has experience with sculling, Paini, who joined UCLA’s women’s rowing team as a freshman walk-on, entered this year’s training camp without ever having practiced the alternative rowing method.
“It speaks to how great of an athlete (Paini) is,” Price said.
“It (also) speaks to how coachable she is. She quickly picked up the sport at UCLA, and became a significant contributor on our team, and she has done the same with the national team.”
As summer training commences at UCLA, the experience they gained with the national team will aid Syverson and Paini as they resume their roles on the women’s rowing team.
“When you race with USA across your chest, it’s another element of pride, and it’s something to really shoot for,” Fuller Kearney said.
“It’s a great thing for our program to have that sort of international experience in the locker room every day.”