U.S. Indoor Rowing Development Squad: Defunct?!
Hmmm don't knowthat I can add a lot here. Yes the team performed quite well, but in the age categories that were represented the competion was more than just thin. And with no absolute confirmation from C2 a lot of my observatins are not rooted in absolutes. But they didn't even find 6 women that could meet the standards? and only 2 men under 50 made it, one woman under 55? I'm an old fart and I dig racing but to be brutally honest its just does not get my competitive vibe up to watch the geriatric crowd row 6:40s and worse. It inspires me, I admire the hell out of them but a knock down, drag out in the open, 30's and 40's can really get me going. C2 sort of got itself into a corner. They wanted to support as many of the European divisions as possible but the reality is that the EIRC is not a huge show, small fields, difficult venues. When I went with the first team to BIRC it was one amzing competition, huge numbers, competitive fields through the 60's and into the 70's. The other two times I went with the USIRT the fields were small and set up so it was very difficult to tell who was racing who. When I set the 55's lightweight WR in Copenhagen I finished second in my race (very difficult to explain, set the world record but finished second) as we had to race the 50s to have a decent number of competitors and also raced along with the heavies. Trying to sort out who was where was just a mess. Bottom line BIRC and WIRC are head and shoulders above the rest of the races for fields and competiton and interest lags accordingly (five women, 9 of twelve over 55), and please don't get me wrong here, I'm 57 but I just don't think watching me race Roy is anywhere near the excitement of seeing the likes of Nik, Graham and some of the others that throw down some phenom numbers. How many of you saw the three way tie at WIRC when the big dogs went at it, great racing. (Pity poor Tom Bohrer, fourth but out of first by .2)Compare that to those that remember Roy, me and David gong 1,2,3, but you remember that not for the quality of the racing but for the most excellent joy of seeing the lying pathological narcisist fail miserably. Memorable, but not amazing racing. And lastly, last summer I had the unexpected privledge of havng dinner with Robert Brody as he was in town checking out colleges with his daughter. Oh man was there much more to the story about him, the USIRT, C2 and all the whats and why's than has ever been made public. Bottom line here C2 was in a bad spot with the USIRT; low participation (same old faces, mine included. Yeah yeah I'll give you Joan but shes the exception), smaller races (less excitement), return on investment (the team just never generated a lot of international mojo) Time to try something new. My 2 cents. dennish
To add to what Bob S. said
"The qualifications for the IRDS were quite soft — much slower than qualifying for a free Boston trip at a satellite regatta (at least in my category — I didn't really check any of the others)."
I, too, did not check the stats on all this: But in the 50-59 lwt group
Qualify for IRDS (june '07): 6:51 2k
Qualify for IRT (October '07):...6:40
Satellite invitation
for Crash-b 2008:(55-59)...........7:03
winning time in Dresden...6:39
My view:
It very hard to make sense out of any of this... And I don't criticize C2 at all.
It's too bad some other entity beside the erg manufacturer can't take the "team" thing on... Then there would be less of a strain on C2's resources.
To my mind this strain goes beyond financial ones. I'm grateful for what C2 has done to encourage competition in indoor rowing.
They probably have some innovative ideas forthcoming.
The sport changes with the era.
Any votes to go back to 2500 meters? (just kidding)
Now that the divisions have spread out and the standards are getting more demanding I have a hard time imagining a sponsor sending 30 athletes abroad for one race (even if it is the European Championship.)
Perhaps with the advances in Information Technology there will be more virtual races. I anticipate intercontinental challenges in cyberspace viewable online..... "Let the games continue!"
cyber competition would be a lot more green too! ~ there's no need to jet around when competitors are really just watching their own monitor.. right in front of them. 
GO GREEN
"The qualifications for the IRDS were quite soft — much slower than qualifying for a free Boston trip at a satellite regatta (at least in my category — I didn't really check any of the others)."
I, too, did not check the stats on all this: But in the 50-59 lwt group
Qualify for IRDS (june '07): 6:51 2k
Qualify for IRT (October '07):...6:40
Satellite invitation
for Crash-b 2008:(55-59)...........7:03
winning time in Dresden...6:39
My view:
It very hard to make sense out of any of this... And I don't criticize C2 at all.
It's too bad some other entity beside the erg manufacturer can't take the "team" thing on... Then there would be less of a strain on C2's resources.
To my mind this strain goes beyond financial ones. I'm grateful for what C2 has done to encourage competition in indoor rowing.
They probably have some innovative ideas forthcoming.
The sport changes with the era.
Any votes to go back to 2500 meters? (just kidding)
Now that the divisions have spread out and the standards are getting more demanding I have a hard time imagining a sponsor sending 30 athletes abroad for one race (even if it is the European Championship.)
Perhaps with the advances in Information Technology there will be more virtual races. I anticipate intercontinental challenges in cyberspace viewable online..... "Let the games continue!"
cyber competition would be a lot more green too! ~ there's no need to jet around when competitors are really just watching their own monitor.. right in front of them. GO GREEN