TRAKAI, Lithuania ? The men?s quad was moving right where it was supposed to. Coming out of the third quarter of the race, they went into sprint mode, seeking a spot on the medals stand.
They had rowed in fifth place, waiting for the planned move, letting Germany, New Zealand, China and Italy beat each other up in front of them. At 1500-meters, they took up the stroke rate and the boat starting moving forward. Everyone watching thought they were inching toward an historic, medal finish.
No American junior men?s quadruple sculls crew had ever made a final in the World Rowing Junior Championships, let alone won a medal.
And then it happened.
Just like with what happened to the Romanian women, rowing for gold in the quad the day before, an oar went in the water and did not come out, and the sprint was over. Instead of going to the medal stand, the American?s crossed last and were engulfed in disappointment.
?It was a good race, but devastating at the end,? said Benjamin Davison. ?We?re happy that we made the final, but also disappointed because we had the potential to set the bar higher. We could have reached further.?
And so ended the 2013 World Rowing Championships on Lake Galve in Trakai, Lithuania, Sunday for the crew of Christopher Wales (Seattle, Wash.), John Kelley (Jacksonville, Fla.), Benjamin Davison (Inverness, Fla.), and Kevin Coyle (Jacksonville, Fla.). They made history, but fell short in the end.
It was that kind of day for the United States junior team that sent two potential medal winning crews to the line in the final and came up short.
Beside the quad, the junior women?s eight that came back from last year?s silver medal performance with hopes of besting defending champion Romania on their minds, had a less than potential level performance in the final and finished out of the medals in fifth place.
In all the U.S. reached the finals in six of 13 events and medaled in two. The junior women?s four won gold and the junior women?s quad took silver on Saturday. The total medal count was two short of last year?s performance in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, when both the women?s pair and the women?s eight won silver medals.
All around the American boats, there was a silent acknowledgement that more could have ? should have ? been done.
?I?m sort of speechless in a weird way because it?s just not what we expected,? said Claire Collins, who rowed in the women?s eight for the second consecutive year. ?It?s not what anyone wanted of course. I don?t think anyone felt like that was our best race and it wasn?t.
?Today was the day and we didn?t execute what we wanted to. Someone asked me, since we got silver last year if I felt any revenge coming back towards Romania. I didn?t think so. You always want to win. But I think there will be some feelings coming back next year to do better and have the race we wanted to have.?
The women?s crew of coxswain Amanda Rutherford (Piedmont, Calif.), Lily Lindsay (Harrison, N.Y.), Melissa Curtis (Rye, N.Y.), Carolina Radcliff (Centreville, Va.), Claire Collins (McLean, Va.), Julia Burgess (Tiburon, Calif.), Meg Galloway (Ridgefield, Conn.), Alia Shafi (Lafayette, Calif.) and Lauren Barnard (Wellesley, Mass.), never really got going.
They fell into fourth right off the line, and while they challenged in the third 500-meters, they could never move out of fourth, and instead, dropped back into fifth in the last quarter. Romania repeated as world champion, Germany took second and Italy grabbed silver.
The men?s quad crown was won by Germany. New Zealand was second and China finished third.
When the water cleared and the task of taking the boats apart and packing up the equipment for the return trip home began, Steve Hargis, who heads the junior development program for USRowing, sat and talked with athletes, offering encouragement and perspective.
?There was some tough rowing today. That was heartbreaking for that quad. They were right in the midst and moving. I thought they were going to grab the bronze, and that?s what we were hoping for,? he said.
?Overall, it was a successful year. We made a lot of new changes and people stepped up to the changes and that was phenomenal. We made six A finals. That?s the same that we have made for past several years, and that?s been very consistent, but we did it in different combinations and that?s even better. But we want to get back to that four plus medals.?
By successful, Hargis was referring to the development of the men?s and women?s sculling camps, of changing the coxed four from a varsity level boat to a development crew, of making the straight four the priority and reaching the final in the event for the first time in history, of the communication between coaches and athletes across the entire U.S.
?The communication across the entire coaching community, both within our coaching staff, and to the junior coaches across the country, that has improved immensely. We are now having coaches reach out to us. If we don?t see their athletes because they are swimming or playing basketball and not rowing yet in some cases, they are now contacting us. And that, to me, is a real step forward.?
?It was another year and we move on,? he said. ?What I told the guys today when they came off the water was to learn something about yourself and about your competition. We?'ve done that at our (coaches and staff level) too and we hope to do something with it.
?Listen, I hope people take the disappointment and funnel it in the right way. If it was easy to win a medal here it would not be the world championship regatta.?
In B finals rowing the U.S. sent three crews to the line.
The men?s eight crew of coxswain Cole Durbin (Newton, Mass.), Julian Goldman (Ross, Calif.), Anand Rajesh (Seattle, Wash.), Nick Mead (Strafford, Pa.), Jackson Dobronyi (San Francisco, Calif.), Jonathan Ghaul (Media, Pa.), Travis Taaffe (Sarasota, Fla.), Jacob Wiedemer (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and Luke O?Brien (Walnut Creek, Calif.) won their race and finished 7th overall.
The junior men?s pair crew of Justin Murphy (Montclair, N.J.) and Nathaniel Goodman (Montclair, N.J.), finished third and placed 9th overall.
Men?s single sculler Walter Banfield (Wake, Va.) finished fourth, placing 10th in the field.
Rowing in the C finals were the junior men?s double sculls, and the junior women?s single sculls.
In the junior men?s double, the crew of James Sincavage (Malvern, Penn.) and James Mahoney (Hillsborough, Calif.), finished fifth for an 17th place finish overall.
In the women?s double sculls, Haley Zapolski (Bettendorf, Iowa) and Joanna Gurman (Weston, Conn.) won their race and finished 13th.
Junior women single sculler Christina Johnson (Redding, Conn.), finished second for a 14th place overall placement.