In any given circumstance, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. This is especially true over long periods of time or distance, such as 26.2 miles or two hours 35 minutes and 59 seconds.
The Wisconsin men's crew team took on a marathon-length course in Natchitoches, La., Saturday. Normal fall races for the crew team, like their earlier races at the Head of the Charles in Boston, Mass., or Head of the Iowa, in Iowa City, Iowa, are only three miles long and are still incredibly physically taxing.
Given that the fall season is more or less a warm up for the all-important spring races, the men's crew team shipped a set of eight rowers and one coxswain down to the bayou for the race.
\This was a pretty self-supported group of guys and they were pretty focused on this race,"" assistant coach Ed Golding said. In fact, the nine Badgers who went down to the race campaigned on their own to get this marathon back onto the Badgers' schedule after their four-year absence from the event. Their volunteer status notwithstanding, the nine Badgers were simply there to win.
From the outset of the race, the Badgers were neck and neck with the Texas Longhorns. At the end, the Badgers finished 10 seconds ahead of the Lonestar rowers to win the race.
This gave the Marathon Rowing Championships two boats that came less than 1:20 from the world record.
In all likelihood, the Badgers would and should have destroyed the world record. But as Golding said, ""Over 26 miles, almost anything can happen.""
In this case, ""anything"" took the form of a broken rudder about 14 miles into the race.
""[It was a] winding ... narrow river maybe three or four boats wide,"" Golding said. ""I guess there was a log on shore that came into the water but [the crew] really couldn't see how far it came. So, [freshman Adamour Barhammand] our coxswain couldn't see it under the water and clipped the fin. The guy who is actually furthest away from the stern, in the two-seat, senior Anders Pesavento, jumps out of the boat, swims all the way to the stern and replaced the fin in a matter of minutes and then rowed the last 12.2 miles.""
So, in the face of near disaster, the Badgers managed to persevere and put up a stunning performance.
""[It was] the buzz of the race after ... there were 20 or 25 teams all talking about the Wisconsin two-seat who hopped out during the race to fix the boat,"" Golding said.
Without a rudder, the mere ability to finish the race, much less challenge a World Record, would have been in doubt.
""I think that they could have still finished but it would have been a very long and arduous 12 miles. It probably would have been just like ""Pong""-going from one side of the river to the other,"" Golding said.
The Badgers' finish is a testament to their dedication and heart. The nine men who competed made it possible to go to this race on their own accord and rose in the face of adversity to accomplish something very rare.
""Rowing is kind of an internally motivated sport, so it was really up to those guys. These guys are exceptionally internally motivated,"" Golding said.
