WEST WINDSOR, N.J. — Now it’s officially official.
Last week, Rodrigo Rodrigues, the coach of the Port Angeles-based Olympic Rowing Association who is serving as a coach for the U.S. Rowing Junior National Team, declared that Sequim’s Elise Beuke had earned a spot on the national team and punched her ticket to next month’s World Junior Championships in Brazil.
That wasn’t untrue, but one small thing remained: Beuke and Isabella Strickler of Detroit still had to row in the U.S. trials.
It was all a formality, really.
No other crews had registered to compete against the duo in the junior women’s double scull, so all Beuke and Strickler had to do, Rodrigues said last week, was show they knew how to row.
They got their chance to do so Monday.
After traveling over the weekend from the U.S. Rowing Sculling Selection Camp in New Milford, Conn., to the trials on Mercer Lake in New Jersey, Beuke and Strickler became the first junior crew to claim a bid to the World Rowing Championships.
Beuke and Strickler finished the course with a time of 7 minutes, 38.94 seconds, according to usrowing.org.
They now return to Connecticut and will turn their focus solely to preparing for the world championships August 5-9 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
There, they will row on the same courses that will be used for next year’s Summer Olympics.
For more about Monday’s U.S. Junior and Para-Rowing World Championships Trials, visit www.tinyurl.com/pdn-RowTrials.
