Wisconsin emerges as a heavyweight

WORCESTER - It was not that Wisconsin rowing coach Chris Clark couldn't bear to watch.

"I missed the first 1,000 [meters], didn't see any of it, or even hear any of it," Clark said yesterday after his varsity heavyweight eights held off top-seeded Brown at the Eastern Sprints at Lake Quinsigamond.

Before he caught the final 1,000 meters, Clark had been tending to a situation caused by one of Wisconsin's rowers leaving on the headlights in one of their vans, one of the Badgers' few mistakes all day. Wisconsin also edged Brown for the Rowe Cup as the heavyweight points champion for the first time since taking the Sprints' first cup in 1946.

"That's our joke now, that we'd like to win it every six decades or so," Clark said.

While Wisconsin thrived, Harvard crews struggled. In the morning heats, the Crimson's defending varsity heavyweight champion boat missed qualifying for the grand final for the first time since 1963, and Harvard's lightweight varsity fell short of a Sprints grand final for the first time ever.

"There were a lot of good crews here and not a lot of margin for error," said Harvard coach Harry Parker, whose third-seeded varsity heavyweight boat finished behind Princeton and Yale in the morning trial, the three finishing within a second.

In the second varsity heavyweight race, Harvard led Wisconsin by about a boat length for most of the race until a mis-stroke with 300 meters remaining enabled the Badgers to rally and take the race for the second year in a row.

Harvard's freshman heavyweight boat turned in the best time of the grand finals, covering the 2,000-meter course in 5 minutes 57.64 seconds.

Wisconsin's varsity heavyweights posted the top time in the morning heats (5:57.43). Princeton placed third in the grand final, followed by Yale, Northeastern and Columbia.

Cornell won the Jope Cup for the overall lightweight title, its first since 1992.