Old Lyme’s Austin Hack and his fellow crew members of the US men’s eight qualified for the 2014 World Rowing Championship final in Amsterdam in the repechage on Wednesday. Hack is a member of the Lyme-Old Lyme High School Class of 2010 and the Stanford University Class of 2014,
After missing a direct pass to the final on Monday, the U.S. crew of Hack along with coxswain Zach Vlahos (Piedmont, Calif.), Thomas Dethlefs (Lawrenceville, N.J.), Nareg Guregian (North Hills, Calif.),Matthew Miller (Fairfax, Va.), Rob Munn (Redmond, Wash.), Steven Kasprzyk(Cinnaminson, N.J.), David Banks (Potomac, Md.) and Sam Dommer (Folsom, Calif.) needed to finish either first or second to advance to the final.
They were hard off the line and built a lead of more than three seconds by the thousand. In the third 500 meters, France cut into that lead, and in the final quarter, they caught up and then clipped the U.S. in the final strokes.
France won in 5:42.91 and the U.S. was second in 5:43.32. Sunday’s final will see France and the U.S. meet rep one winners Great Britain and Russia, and heat winners Poland and Germany.
“You want to win the race, but we really went hard at the beginning,” said Guregian. “We worked on the first half (of our race) in one day, so now we have four days to get ready for the final.”