“The target is not on our back, it’s on the gold medal,” Holzapfel added. “[And] on the winner’s dock.”
Just like last year, that trip to the dock must go through Princeton, which finished second to Harvard at last year’s Eastern Sprints. In an April dual race against the Tigers, the Crimson enjoyed its finest race of the season, overcoming an early six-seat deficit to come away with an emphatic, two-boat-length victory. Harvard, then No. 4, shot to No. 1 in the national polls and hasn’t let up since.
Princeton hasn’t tripped up either, rounding out the dual season with wins over Cornell, Brown, and Yale. The Tigers enter the weekend as the EARC’s No. 2 crew.
“We are expecting Princeton to be our big competition,” said sophomore varsity two-seat Andrew Boston. “But nothing is taken for granted, and we are going to go out and row the fastest and best race we can.”
“They definitely have the most potential of anybody else we raced,” added Kosmicki. “People think the most highly of them, so we have to look out for them more than anybody else.”
Northeastern, which came in 6.9 seconds behind Harvard two weeks ago, sits at a dangerous No. 3.
But the large margins the Crimson enjoyed in dual season—Harvard has yet to see contact with another boat at the finish—will be hard to engineer on Sunday.
“The thing about racing six across, even with a crew that you’re faster than two weeks ago,” Kosmicki said, “when they’re being pushed by someone else they’re going to be closer. If we’re a length up on somebody, but they’re bow ball to bow ball with number three, they’re still going to be going crazy.”
The Harvard second varsity also enters the Sprints races as a defending champion, although the 2005 dual season was an up-and-down one for the Crimson. The second varsity finds itself at No. 6 heading into the weekend and will face a No. 1 Navy crew in the morning heat.
“We’re feeling confident,” said senior second varsity five-seat Will Ulrich. “We’re going to have a tough heat, but we’ve been getting a little bit faster and feeling a little bit better about the boat every day we come off the water.”
In last year’s second varsity race, Harvard took off after 500 meters and had little problem dispelling the competition, finishing more than five seconds ahead of second-place Cornell. The Crimson is no longer the favorite, and that anonymity on the start line allows the oarsmen to push even harder.
“We have guys who row well,” Ulrich said. “If we can bring it together and have a good result, it will vindicate our early losses. They will be forgotten immediately if we have a good result.”
If both boats were to win on Sunday, Harvard would claim its first two-boat Sprints three-peat since 1964-1966.
“There’s definitely another gear that we haven’t been forced to use,” sophomore varsity three seat Toby Medaris said. “It’s exciting to have to use that.”
The legend seems to be holding up just fine in the present tense.
—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.