Harvard Men’s Lightweight 8 Claims Third Straight Head of the Charles Victory

As the members of the men’s lightweight eight boat leaped into the Charles River after their race on Sunday, celebrating their third straight victory at the Head of the Charles Regatta, the deafening roar of the crowd embodied the sense of triumph Crimson fans felt on Sunday.

Harvard also found success on the final day of the 59th Head of the Charles with its men’s heavyweight crew team, which finished first among collegiate boats in the Championship eight race, and second overall.

While the women’s lightweight fours and the men’s lightweight fours also secured top-five finishes, the Harvard-Radcliffe lightweight eights had the Crimson’s most disappointing finish of the day — placing fourth in a tight race that ended the team’s two-year winning streak.

“How can you beat Head of the Charles?” said Charley Butt, the head coach for the Harvard men’s heavyweight crew team, capturing the vibrant mood along the banks of the Charles River on Sunday. “We’re delighted with the results across the board.”

The Crimson’s rowers also appreciated the gravity of the moment, emphasizing the unique feeling of competing on their home turf.

“It is so special,” said Brahm Erdmann, a senior from New Zealand who has anchored the winning lightweight squad for the last three years.

“The feeling of coming onto this dock and winning at Head of the Charles as Harvard on your own home course is just unrivaled,” added Brahm, a Crimson Sports editor.

The men's lightweight eight rowers catapult themselves into the Charles, after their third consecutive victory at Head of the Charles. By Thomas Harris

The energy over the weekend was palpable from the docks of the Newell Boathouse as hundreds of Crimson alumni lined the banks of the Charles to cheer on all four of Harvard’s crew teams.

The first race of the day to feature a Crimson boat was the men’s lightweight fours, with two Harvard boats vying for victory in a 10-boat field. The Crimson’s A boat placed fourth with a time of 16:20.462 while the B boat finished third with a time of 16:19.174 seconds. Penn’s B and A boats finished in first and second, marking an interesting dynamic in which both schools saw an underdog finish.

For the second year in a row the Harvard B4 boat outraced the A4 boat, proving that anything can happen out on the water.

“I think it's a classic underdog story, where the B4 — it happens in practices all the time — where the people who are ranked lower in the boats want to beat the people ahead of them,” said junior Matt Lyons, a rower in the B4 boat.

“We really went for it, that was the goal we had going into the race,” Lyons added. “We weren't really focused on anything else other than beating the A4, and we're really happy that we were able to do that.”

For the Orinda, Calif. native, the race was extra special as it marked the first time the junior placed in the top-three in a race, bringing home bronze on his home course.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever placed in any race in the spring or in the fall, so I'm really happy with the performance,” Lyons said. “It’s a really special feeling.”

Despite the intra-team rivalry between the two men’s 4V boats, there were no hard feelings on the part of the A4 boat.

“We feel good about how we did and we’re happy that the B-boat was also able to do really well,” said A-boat senior coxswain Megan Ong, one of four female coxswains who competed with men’s crews on Sunday.

The Harvard women's lightweight boat sets off to compete in the 2024 Head of the Charles Regatta. The lightweight eights had a disappointing fourth-place this year, failing to defend their HOCR title. By Sarah G. Erickson

On the women’s side of the lightweight fours competition, the Radcliffe results were less surprising, with the A-boat finishing third and the B-boat placing sixth. The third-place finish for the first boat represented Radcliffe rowing’s best finish in the lightweight fours since 2018, when the Harvard women won the event.

As the sun beat down and morning turned into afternoon, the marquee races of the third day set off: the eight-person boats. Just before 2 p.m., the Harvard men’s heavyweight team competed against both collegiate and club teams in the men’s Championship eights race.

Through the week, the men’s heavyweight team was ready to challenge for the HOCR crown. On the sunny day, the team filled into the boathouse full of excitement.

“We knew that all the training we did in the fall, all the practices we had last season in a very similar lineup, kind of prepared us for this,” said junior Tyler Horler. “And then we just gave it our best.”

In the water the varsity boat started slowly, clocking in at fifth place after its first split—just behind Yale. But as the team approached the Newell stretch of the course, it picked up its pace while being spurred on by the thousands of fans cheering for the Crimson boat. The energy was so effusive on the dock that the boost seemed to propel the team for the last mile of the race.

Visibly picking up speed as the boat flew across the water by Newell, the crew was able to make up ground, which enabled the crew to slot into second place by split number two.

While the Cambridge A-boat outperformed the Crimson’s first boat by about three seconds, Harvard took home the first place prize amongst collegiate programs, with Cambridge not qualifying for that distinction given the number of graduate students on its roster.

Among familiar faces on the water was former Harvard rower Oscar Olsen ’24, who is currently pursuing a masters degree at Cambridge. Olsen competed today for the school’s Varsity B-boat which placed 19th.

“We had Princeton right on our tail, and then we were able to move away from them pretty easily,” said junior Cameron Beyki. “Unfortunately, Cambridge just picked us, but they've got a very strong team after the post-Olympic year.”

Further down the standings the freshman eight — fondly referred to as the “freight” — a boat composed entirely of freshman student athletes for the Crimson, upset the junior varsity boat with a 15th place finish after coming in two places higher and finishing one second ahead of the “2V.”

The conclusion of that race marked the second surprise upset of the day, and resulted in a raucous cheer from the freshman as they were embraced upon their arrival back at the dock.

“We’re stoked. We didn’t come here to get whooped,” said freshman Joe Baker.

About the boat’s approach to the race, Baker added that the goal was to “come in with the mindset that we're gonna win, and get it done every time.”

After the heavyweights’ successful run, one of the most anticipated races of the entire regatta for Harvard kicked off: the men’s lightweight eights. Returning six out of nine boat members from last year’s victorious crew, expectations were sky high for the lightweights. And they did not disappoint.

Meeting every possible expectation, the boat cruised easily to a first place finish, securing the team’s third-straight HOCR victory. With a final time of 14:09.094, the boat crossed the finish line more than nine seconds ahead of its closest competitor, Cornell, who finished the race with a time of 14:18:512.

Senior Anya Cheng, the 2024 IRCA Coxswain of the Year, flawlessly navigated the boat through the tricky twists and turns of the Charles River. This race marked Cheng’s last HOCR in the Harvard uniform, and she described how important the historic event was for her team.

“It’s definitely one of the most meaningful races to win as a Harvard oarsman,” Cheng said. “This team has become a family to me, and being able to row down the course with eight of my family members, past the boathouse full of my family members, is the most special thing in the world.”

Cheng credited the lightweight’s continued success to the rowers’ drive. The HOCR is a three mile race (4,800 meters) on a notoriously challenging course. The course is much longer than a typical race, which pushes the athletes past the brink of exhaustion both mentally and physically. Having such a large and vocal group of spectators along the way gives the Harvard boats an extra edge with about a third of the river left to tackle. Just as the boats are starting to hit the wall, they are propelled forward by the crowds at Weld and Newell.

“These are long races and these are painful races,” Cheng described. “The crew that can endure the pain the most is typically the crew that wins, and that is the highest praise that I give to my rowers. They endure more pain than really any other crew that I’ve seen, and that’s why they’re perfect to win a race like this over and over again.”

The Crimson team seemed to be undaunted by the pressure of its fans’ high expectations as it glided past the roaring crowd at Newell Boathouse, executing its strenuous sprint impeccably.

The Harvard men's B-boat competes in the Head of the Charles Regatta in 2024. By Matteo L. Cagliero

“That extra burst you get just coming through Anderson Bridge when you go by the boathouse, you can just feel in your bones,” Erdmann said.

From a strategic standpoint, the Crimson did have a bit of a home-river advantage. Not only are they familiar with the path of the river, but the Harvard boathouses are conveniently located at the second mile mark. When the Crimson crews hear the cheers from their families, alumni, and friends, they know it’s time for the final mile grind to the finish line.

“You can hear individual people scream,” Erdnamm said. “I can always tell my mom’s own screams and things like that, so it definitely fires me up coming through [the boathouses]. She was going ‘Go Brahm’ at the top of her lungs.”

Exhilarated by the crowd, the crew successfully secured a dominant win. For the third consecutive time, the crew returned to the boathouse victorious. In celebration, the crew grasped Cheng by the arms and ankles and gleefully hurled her into the Charles River. The boys flipped in after her, taking a victory dip in the renowned “dirty water.”

“I’ve been thrown in three times now,” Cheng said with a laugh.

“I think this was the coldest one, but it tastes so sweet,” she added.

The Harvard-Radcliffe heavyweight eight boat put in a strong performance as well in the Championship eights, placing 13th overall and ninth among collegiate programs. On the way down the river, the team outrowed some of its competitors that had been slated to handily put away the Crimson. Barrelling down the river, the squad surpassed the likes of the Ukrainian National Team and the Michigan Wolverines, both of which are crews that came into the race favored to beat the tournament’s host.

Sophomore Kathryn Serra described the environment at Weld and Newell boathouses as a major benefit to her race.

“I feel like it made a really big difference to our overall race time,” Serra said. “ I feel like at this point mid-race, I'm so dead and hearing a call, the roar, from the crowd just gives me a second wind to carry me through to the end.”

Sophomore Isabel Llabres Diaz also mentioned that racing along the Charles factored into their strong performance as the team is comfortable with the windiness. The Charles is a notoriously difficult set of turns to chart, and as such, Crimson’s advantage of racing along it every day for practice gives the squad an advantage heading into competition.

“I think we've been trying this year to take confidence that it's our river and use that to our advantage. We're trying to turn it into our superpower,” the sophomore heavyweight rower said.

The Harvard women's crew team carries their boat during the Head of the Charles Regatta on Sunday. By Briana Howard Pagán

Despite starting off slowly — the squad posted the slowest split to the Riverside checkpoint in the top-18 — the crew was able to bounce back and reclaim the back-half of the river as its own, climbing up five spots to finish 13th overall.

The Radcliffe lightweight eight boat also had a tough race on Sunday afternoon. The crew looked to defend its title as 2023 HOCR champions, striving for another first place finish in front of its boisterous hometown fans. Unfortunately for the Crimson, the boat fell just short of the podium, notching a fourth place finish with a final time of 16:31.415. Harvard’s Ivy League nemesis Princeton snuck ahead and into third place with a time of 16:31.176, out-rowing the Crimson by just .239 milliseconds. Despite the disappointing finish, Sisira Holbrook, a junior walk-on from New Orleans and member of the varsity lightweight eight crew, said that the team still enjoyed the unique atmosphere of the regatta.

“The whole experience is a little extra otherworldly,” Holbrook said. “I was talking to a fellow walk-on, and she was racing the Charles for the first time after learning how to row last fall. We were getting so excited and so nervous, and the pressure is so high because we care so much, but it’s such a privilege to get to care this much about something we never would have imagined being involved in.”

The race across the entire 8-boat field was close. The first place finishers, the World Lightweight Rowing Alliance from Australia, recorded a time of 16:29.276, only 2.139 seconds ahead of the Radcliffe boat. Despite the slightly disappointing result in this race, the future is bright for Radcliffe lightweight rowing. The crew, including the coxswain, of the ‘A’ boat was composed of five underclassmen and four juniors, meaning that nobody will graduate in the spring. This grants the crew an opportunity for redemption in 2025.

Holbrook said she was grateful for the opportunity to compete alongside her teammates in front of their home crowd.

“We were like, look, however the race goes tomorrow, just to launch from Weld Boathouse with everyone on the dock cheering, to race HOCR for Radcliffe on our river, and to suffer and compete with teammates whom we love and trust so much,” she said. “That will forever be one of the coolest things we ever do.”

—Staff writers Katharine Forst, Jack Silvers, Thomas Harris, Isabel Smail, Daniel Hochberg, Isaiah Trumbull, Reed Trimble, Daniel Hochberg, Riya Sikand, and Anneliese Mattox contributed reporting