The Cornell men’s heavyweight rowers traveled to New Haven, Conn., on Saturday to participate in the annual Carnegie Cup, a race between Princeton, Yale and Cornell. The Red has won the cup 30 times, including last year. The team was unable to continue its winning streak, however, falling short against the Tigers as Princeton swept the first three varsity races to come away with the overall victory.
Although Cornell came into the race as the lowest-ranking team, junior Kyle Good said the men were confident in their abilities, especially coming off of last year’s victory.
“The last few years the Carnegie Cup has always been a good showing for [Cornell],” he said. “[The rankings were] similar to last year’s rankings before this race.”
The team made changes to the upper boats in order to improve its speed, leaving the Red in a better position than it had in last week’s races against Navy and Syracuse. Freshman Guthrie Renwick added that the New Haven course proved troubling for the team — the Red initially had the lead in the second varsity race, but fell short after the first 1200 meters.
“Yale’s race course is very mentally challenging because the boats don’t start evenly to compensate for a turn in the middle of the race,” Renwick said. “We didn’t know what to expect for this race, only that we needed to go out there and race as hard as we could.”
Despite the loss, Renwick said team is content with its performance.
“The overall result is a good measure of where we currently are as a team,” he said, adding that the Red was able to beat Yale across the board, a notable feat considering the Bulldogs were ranked ahead of the Red. “At the end of the day, we far outperformed the expectations set for us. It is always exciting for us to see how we gain speed as the season goes on.”
Original Author: Anna Fasman