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Southport's Lucy and Rosemary Grinalds and New Canaan's Marianne Hoeft helped stroke the U.S. to a historic performance Saturday at the World Rowing Junior Championships in Racice, Czech Republic.
Lucy Grinalds helped the women's four win a silver medal. Her sister, Rosemary, and Hoeft were part of the women's eight that won a silver medal. It marked the first time the U.S. has won double medals in sweep events at the meet.
The women's four finished less than a half second behind gold medalist New Zealand. "It was an amazing race," said Lucy, a three-time member of the U.S. junior team on USRowing.org. "We had a little bit of a rough start, but we stuck to our race plan and really moved through the second 1,000 [meters]. Our goal was to make a huge move and a huge comeback. It was an awesome sprint through the finish."
Great Britain won the gold in the women's eight, followed by the U.S. and Romania. The women's teams were coached by Liz Trond of the Connecticut Boat Club, based in Norwalk.
In other races Saturday involving area rowers, Westport's Elizabeth Youngling and teammate Hemingway Benton won the B final in the women's pair. The victory placed them seventh overall in the meet.
In the men's four, Darien's Parker Lange, Weston's Thomas Stolarski, New Canaan's Charles Campbell and Thacher Dodge finished sixth in the B final for 12th place overall. The women's double sculls and men's quadruple sculls advanced to the C finals following each crews' respective second-place finish in the C/D semifinals. Westport's Susan Greenberg and Fairfield's Alexandra Zadravec were second off the line and held off Estonia to cross second in a 7:52.34. Croatia won the race in a 7:36.86. In the men's quad, a team that included Weston's Graham Anderson and Westport's Max Meyer-Bosse took second behind France. Complete results are available at the USRowing site.
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