The Crimson heavyweights faced the Badgers last year at Eastern Sprints, falling in the varsity race but winning the Rowe Cup for overall team performance. While Harvard trained for H-Y, Wisconsin went on to win the equivalent trophy at Nationals.
“After winning the Rowe Cup last year at, as well as dominating Henley, I believe we have shown ourselves to be a top-notch program,” McDaniel wrote.
“If you win Eastern Sprints, you’ll pretty much get on the podium at IRAs,” Blomquist said.
However, through the Crimson does compete at the highest level throughout the year, it rarely meets the dominant West Coast teams such as No 1 UC-Berkeley and No. 4 Washington. Harvard used to attend the San Diego Crew Classic, but for the last four years the team taken a spring training trip to Florida instead.
“There is a degree of asymmetry in U.S. collegiate rowing that will be corrected by a full field IRA,” Clark said. “It is a shame that every top team does not meet at least once a year.”
Thus, while many of the Harvard rowers harbor concerns about downplaying the H-Y tradition, they are also enthusiastic about competing against the best boats in the country at IRAs.
“I feel like it is about time we raced them [UC-Berkeley and Washington] and see where we stand,” McDaniel wrote. “UC-Berkeley has been the standard by which all crews set themselves for the past four years. I feel other Harvard crews in that time have compared well to them, and I relish the opportunity to put our crew in that same light.”
This year, IRAs promise to be as competitive as ever and the winners will be able to call themselves “National Champs” in good conscience.
“Making any final at Cherry Hill has just been made a heck of a lot harder,” Clark said. “I think it is race between Harvard, Cal, and Washington.”
IRAs will take place from May 28-30, and Harvard and Yale will meet again on the Thames for the 151st H-Y Regatta on June 7.
The H-Y series currently weighs comfortably in Harvard’s favor at 83-53, and the Crimson has won 16 of the last 18 H-Y Regatta, including the past three.
“Maybe it means a little less to them [the Bulldogs] now because they keep losing,” Skey said.