US Women's L2x
About the campaign
**Update** Last week (4/12-15) we headed up to Princeton, NJ to race the open weight W2X Olympic Trials to test out our speed against the fastest scullers in the USA before heading out to race in Lucerne, Switzerland. After 5 hard-fought races over 4 days, we placed 2nd out of 16 boats; finishing in a close 2nd place to 10-time National team and 3-time Olympian, Genevra Stone, and her partner Kristi Wagner. This race experience was invaluable to us as we move into our final 3 weeks of training before the Olympic Qualification Regatta.
"We're really proud of the improvements we were able to make throughout the regatta and ultimately the way we were able to hold our own against the top open weight USA women. We were able to identify some areas that we can really work hard to strengthen before Lucerne", said Michelle Sechser.
“It’s a very exciting feeling. I don’t think I expected to have done what we did today, just in terms of percentages of times. These are all athletes I’ve looked up to for a long time and it’s very cool to get to race against them and to test our speed against them” said Molly Reckford. While we personally feel like we exceeded our own expectations of results at the open weight Olympic Trials, it turns out Coach Casey Galvanek was confident all along that our LW2X was capable of such a strong performance.
It was fantastic to receive so many cheers and notes of encouragement throughout the race week from our Sarasota Crew community. Your direct support through the LW2X fundraiser will help offset costs incurred for travel, accommodations, and equipment at Olympic Trials II in Princeton, NJ. Thank you! Go Crew!
We are so grateful for everything that the Sarasota Crew community has done for us. Training in Sarasota was the ideal environment to get us ready for trials: we had gracious host families, friends and training partners to push us, a beautiful 2k course, and a wonderful city to call home-away-from-home. We are excited to keep training under Casey Galvanek's coaching and getting faster as we head to Lucerne, Switzerland for the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta.
In order to get race-ready, we traveled to Princeton, NJ to train with the Women's National Team training center ath
letes. We will soon head out to Switzerland to acclimatize to the time zone and weather in Europe. We are hoping to raise $8,000 to help us cover the expenses for these training trips. The money will help us pay for Casey's flights, his hotel in Princeton and Switzerland, a rental car while abroad, docking fees in Europe, etc.
As we probably don’t have to tell you, the support of the Sarasota Crew community was critical to our success to date. We look forward to proudly representing you and the USA as we engage competitors from around the world next month for a spot in Tokyo. We’d very much appreciate any financial assistance that you can provide.
Thank you,
Michelle and Molly
