The U.S. Olympic crew will be drawn from the Princeton Training Center, USRowing and San Diego Training Center crews—the last of which Harvard defeated.

The Princeton Training Center crew led throughout, eking out the fastest time at the first checkpoint at Riverside before distancing itself significantly from the competition. Leading Victoria City by less than a second early on, Princeton Training Center stretched the difference to six seconds by the next timed mark.

“In the latter half, the Princeton Training Center boat behind us had closed on us, and we really made an effort not to let them pass us,” senior six-seat Cameron Winklevoss said. “As we sensed them coming up a little bit, we brought up the pressure.”

The Harvard heavies’ performance shone most brightly in comparison to those three in the course’s final stretch, over which the Crimson boat turned in a faster time than the Canadian national crew, despite the quagmire caused by the Huskies.

“We were a little disappointed,” Winklevoss said. “We thought there was some room for improvement that could have made up the small time difference between us and [USRowing].”

On its home river, the Crimson’s mastery of the water was apparent in relation to the visiting national teams.

“[Senior coxswain] Jesse [Oberst] called the turns as tight as you could possibly expect,” senior three-seat Tyler Winklevoss said. “We were right on the buoy line steering as short a course as possible. The national team boat that did win—compared to them we steered a better course.”

A second crew of Harvard heavies, racing as the Charles River Rowing Association, placed 26th in the challenging field in a time of 15:10.506.

Also racing as the Charles River Rowing Association, the top Crimson lightweight eight placed sixth in the Lightweight Eights division in a time of 14:54.108.

Unlike their heavyweight counterparts, the lights were bested by several of their collegiate rivals, including Yale, which took second in 14:47.594, Princeton and the U.S. Naval Academy, which placed fourth in 14:52.135 and fifth in 14:52.402, respectively.

Harvard started slowly compared to the other crews and quickly settled into its base pace, rather than aggressively pursuing the opening lengths.

The strategy ultimately proved costly as crews picked off seconds from behind en route to faster times.

“We settled down in the piece pretty early,” junior stroke Pat Haas said. “We didn’t attack really for the first minute or so of the piece like we really should have. We settled in and the other crews really attacked that first minute.”

After the initial margins had been established, little changed as the race wore on. Canada’s Brock University Rowing Club made several runs at Harvard on its way to a third-place finish, but the Crimson always responded in kind and was never passed.

“We saw Brock walk up and they had about three seconds on us pretty early in the piece,” Haas said. “That shook us up. We saw them make another attack on us around Anderson [Bridge] and that scared us into getting into gear.”