In the second of two finals, the Graves brothers solidified their place on the US National Team this morning by winning for the second straight day — this time by a margin of roughly three seconds. The duo is going well and seems to be getting faster as the days go by, judging from their first performance through today’s result. Yesterday, there was some question raised on row2k as to whether the two would have enough to hold off the field, as it took a monstrous sprint for the Graves brothers to edge out their closest competition (a UTC/PAC/GMS (Steve Whelpley, Michael Sivigny entry). Today, however, Pete and Tom had established a solid lead by the halfway point, and were able to hold off everything the field could throw at them.
A huge congratulations to both of them from everyone in the ‘Little Knights’ nation, as well as from all the ‘Crimson Bear’ brethren. We know they’ll represent the US very well at the upcoming World Championships, from the 23rd to the 30th of August.
The other boat to watch was the coxed pair, with UCLA grad Martin Reschke and ‘Crimson Bear’ veteran Chris DeFelice in a very strong Penn AC entry. Unfortunately, though they made up a great deal of ground on the US Rowing Training Center entry of Henrik Rummel and Cal grad Troy Kepper, they fell just under two seconds short of their goal. It was a hell of a fight and congrats to Chris and Martin for attacking it so well. We can only hope that Martin continues to develop his talents as a rower in the future and we’ll be watching to see what his next step will be.
And Chris — any thoughts on a Tokyo redux? For that matter — Martin, what about you?
(Photo: Martin and Chris leading the pack in the Men’s 2+)
