Windermere Cup: Record crowd cheers Huskies to victory

Seattle Times staff reporter

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Complete Windermere Cup results

Giorgia Minzoni, the coxswain for the Italian national women's crew team, said she and teammates "felt warmer" during yesterday's race than they ever had before.

And she wasn't talking about the weather that greeted the participants at yesterday's Windermere Cup on Montlake Cut, though she could have been, as the fates graced the annual Opening Day regatta with one of the nicest days anyone could remember seeing at the event in a decade.

Instead, she was referring to the reception from a crowd that veteran observers said was the biggest and loudest in the 18-year history of the event.

"We felt famous," she said. "We are not used to this."

And it was that roar of the crowd that had all the teams talking afterward — even if it left them mostly unable to talk during the races themselves — and seemed to overshadow the results.

The host University of Washington won five of the six feature races, taking the men's and women's Windermere Cup titles (for varsity eights), the men's Erickson Memorial Cascade Cup (for junior-varsity eights) and the men's freshman and women's novice eights.

Washington State got the other win, beating the Huskies to take the (junior-varsity) women's Cascade Cup, the first loss for UW in the 13 years that race has been contested.

But the Windermere Cup, as UW varsity eight coxswain Greg King said, is more spectacle than race, and it seemed even more so this year thanks to the weather that helped bring an audience estimated by one official at 40,000.

"I've seen every one of these, and this is by far the biggest crowd we've ever had," said UW men's crew coach Bob Ernst. "I'm sure the weather was part of it. ... But what an event. I've never seen a crowd anything close to that and they were very verbal and vocal and all that kind of stuff. It was fun."

So fun that UCLA's women's varsity eight finished a somewhat disappointing third behind UW and Italy, yet hardly seemed to care.

"I don't think they've ever experienced anything quite that exciting before," said UCLA coach Amy Fuller. "They were so happy. Before the varsity launched, they heard the spectators and the horns and all that kind of stuff and they got so nervous, it was kind of cute."

Fuller, who has rowed in three Olympics, said the roar was unlike anything she heard in those competitions.

Navy men's varsity eight coxswain Albert Arnold marveled that "it was as close to playing a college-football game as you are going to get in rowing."

The spectacle on the shore helped make up for a relative lack of drama on the water as the Huskies dominated the two main races.

The UW women's varsity eight was never challenged in winning in 6 minutes, 32.70 seconds, comfortably ahead of Italy (6:38.33) and UCLA (6:48.56).

UW women's coach Eleanor McElvaine was especially pleased considering she felt her team was "a little tired" from a tough recent schedule that didn't allow for the usual amount of rest this week.

"(The result) was completely unexpected," she said. "I would have expected the Italians to be right up there with us a little. ... It was a good handling of the pressure and the situation for us."

The UW women have won 20 of 28 Opening Day titles, though they lost last year to Belarus.

The men had a little more competition from Navy, which hung with the Huskies for about the first third of the race before UW pulled away to win the main race for the third straight year and the 13th time in the last 14 years. The Huskies won in 5:43.14. Navy was second at 5:49.83.

"The first quarter of the race, the water is really crazy and bouncy," Ernst said. "But that's part of the game."

Ernst, who has been searching for the perfect combination for his boat all season, shuffled the deck again yesterday, replacing Martin Rogulia with Dusan Nikolic in the No. 3 seat. And while pleased with the result, he said more changes could be afoot in practice this week. "They're going to get a truth serum Monday and Tuesday to see how they are really doing," Ernst said.

UW's men's JV eight improved its record to 4-0 this season, recording a 5:51.75 in the Cascade Cup to easily beat Oregon State (6:00.61) and Washington State (6:15.98).

The UW women's novice eight improved to 5-0 this year with a similarly easy win in its race. UW won in 6:41.94 with Oregon State the runner-up at 6:50.44.

UW's men's freshman eight held off a stiff charge from Oregon State to win its race in 6:01.55. OSU was second at 6:02.11.

WSU's win in the women's Cascade Cup, however, cast the only cloud of the day for the home team — the Huskies won nine of 10 races overall, also taking the men's varsity four and men's open eight, and the women's varsity four and open eight.

The WSU women were about a boat-length behind halfway through the Cascade Cup before rallying to win.

"We need to do some looking at our players and make sure we have the toughest players in our boat," McElvaine said. "That is not acceptable to have somebody come back and walk through you. To be ahead and have somebody come back through you is not something to ever be proud of."