USRowing Masters National Championships
August 11 - 14, 1999 - Gainsville, GA
Report from Loretta McCarthy -
Many thanks for the 'luck' on our web page... I need not say how we feel about the outcome of our Final W-C 4+ race... It was perhaps one of the most gut-wrenching 4 days of rowing I have had... all of us agreed that the competition was very tough (we knew that after the first heat)... and we knew that we had a difficult task ahead of us. In the 4 days of racing, I ended up in 8 races - every one of them incredibly hard. Camille and I stroked - with Jan in the 4 seat - Lake Merritt to a silver in the finals (W-C 8+). They were a great bunch of women and their cox was awesome...we tried to sneak her home. Again...as stern pair for Riverside Comp.(W-D 8+) we took the silver in a very tough race.It was a real pleasure to be asked to stroke such a powerful boat. We were able to get in only one practice with them Wed. night. Our four practiced after that with our cox, Rachel, from Augusta,GA. There was not much time to do anything else.
We were happy that Sheryl picked up a race and was asked to stroke a 4+ for Detroit on Wed. - no hardware.
Jan and I were in a quad for Passaic Comp... got 3rd in the heat and just missed 3rd in finals by .1 sec. The quad was great...I loved rowing it!
Our W-C4+ was the toughest... 20 boats... 4heats... all in the heat of the day - with semi's close to 7:00pm.that night. We knew we could do it -
We gave it our all for finals, but it just didn't come together... we know you and all Lakers were cheering us on - thanks for that support.
Hey...we're glad we did it - we'll work hard on improving and getting stronger and being a team. They don't come much more exciting then Masters
Nationals!
Great people...great venue...great racing.
Loretta