June 4, 2008
CAMDEN, N.J. - The Yale heavyweight crew heads to Camden, N.J. this week to compete at the 106th Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championships. This three-day event begins on Thursday, June 5 and ends on Saturday, June 7. The Bulldogs are coming off a strong performance at the Eastern Sprints and are hoping to improve on last year's IRA showing. Seven heavyweight boats will compete for Yale at the National Championships.
The heavyweight varsity eight, which took fourth at Eastern Sprints comes to the IRA ranked No. 6 behind Washington, Wisconsin, Brown, California and Princeton. Their heat is at 7:48 a.m. on Thursday. They face Ivy League opponents Brown and Harvard along with Purdue, Oregon State and Colgate. The top two finishers will receive automatic bids to the semifinals on Friday. All others will race in the repechages later that day.
Yale's second varsity eight comes to the IRA ranked No. 11. Their heat will take place at 8:36 a.m. on Thursday where they will face Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Columbia in an all-Ivy battle for the semifinals. Only the top two will advance automatically. All others will race in the repechages in the afternoon.
The Yale freshman eight, which also took fourth at Eastern Sprints, also comes to the IRA ranked No. 6. They will race in the 10:00 a.m. heat against Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell, Boston University and Hobart. The top two will advance to the semifinals and again, all others will be in the repechages.
The Yale heavyweights are entered in four more events: the varsity pair, the open four, the varsity four and the freshman four. The varsity pair will race Thursday morning at 7:24 a.m. against Harvard, Loyola, Brown and Loyola Marymount. The top finisher will go to the final, the rest to Friday's repechages. The open four will race in Thursday morning's heat at 10:36 a.m., with the top finisher going to the final and the remainders going to the repechages.
The varsity four and freshman four will be qualifying for the finals by time trial. Crews finishing in places 1-12 move on to the "A" and "B" semifinals and have the opportunity to qualify for the petite and grand finals. Crews finishing in places 13-24 move on to "C" and "D" semifinals, with the opportunity to qualify for the 3rd and 4th level finals. The varsity four time trials begin at noon and the freshman four time trials begin at 12:30 p.m.
The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is pleased to announce that live audio broadcast of the IRA National Championships will be available on line Thursday, June 5 through Saturday, June 7. Spectators will be able to listen to live racing by clicking here.
Report filed by Dominique Fenton '10, Yale Sports Publicity
