RICH FAHEY
Associated Press
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Cambridge Boat Club’s Andrew Campbell and Gevvie Stone won the men’s and women’s singles titles Saturday on the first day of the 50th annual Head of the Charles Regatta.
The Cambridge Boat Club is the third timing checkpoint on the race course and serves as headquarters for the regatta. Campbell and Stone have trained and lifted weights together.
The 22-year-old Campbell, a 2014 Harvard graduate now living in Cambridge, went off fifth and turned back defending champion Kjetil Borch of Norway in a course-record 17 minutes, 11.65 seconds in sunny conditions.
Campbell, the lightweight singles winner in the 2014 World Rowing Under 23 Championship, has spent the last four years training on the Charles.
“I know every twist and turn on this river like the back of my hand,’ he said.
Borch went off first and had the advantage of clean water in the regatta’s elapsed time mode, with sculls sent off single-file each 10-15 seconds, but Campbell, only 155 pounds, powered forward and had control as his former Harvard teammates cheered him on at Harvard’s Weld Boathouse at the 2-mile mark.
“I have a history of rowing well against guys bigger than me,” said Campbell, who credited his technical skills with making up the difference in size and strength.
He hopes to compete in the doubles for the U.S. in the 2016 Olympics.
The 29-year-old Stone, from Newton, won for the fifth time on the 3-mile, winding upstream course on the Charles River. She beat Kathleen Bertko, her close friend and training partner, by more than 22 seconds in a time of 18.39:90.
Stone was seventh in the singles in the 2012 Olympics and hopes to compete for the U.S. in 2016. She will Sunday in the women’s championship eights as a member of the Cambridge Boat Club’s “Great Eight” entry.
Stone graduated from Tufts Medical School in May.
“The pressure was on because I didn’t have the excuse of medical school anymore,” she said. “People were screaming for me the whole way down the course.”
Croatian brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovic won the men’s doubles in a course-record 15:40.56, edging brothers Tom and Peter Graves of Craftsbury Common, Vermont, while the Dutch duo of Elisabeth Hogerworf and Inge Janssen took the women’s doubles.
“It was very special day with the people along the course cheering us on,” Martin Sinkovic said. He said brother Valent did the navigating on the twisting course with several bridges and “I just rowed.”
The University of Virginia successfully defended its collegiate men’s fours title, and Barry University of Miami won the women’s race for the second straight year.
James McGaffigan of the Cambridge-based Riverside Boat Club won the men’s master singles, and Lisa Weise of the Lansing (Michigan) Boat Club took the women’s race.
The men’s master eights championship went to the Shannon Rowing Club of Limerick, Ireland, with the British crew from Molesey Boat Club taking the women’s title.
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