Edition: U.S. / Global

CREW; American Men and Women: Eights Wild and Winners

Published: October 21, 2002

The American men and women swept the championship eights events for the second consecutive year at the end of the 38th annual Head of the Charles Regatta today.

The United States women's eight, the reigning world champion, had its first race on American waters since winning the world championship last month in Seville, Spain, and made it a victory parade cheered on by the throngs lining the three miles of the Charles River course.

The only member of the eight missing from the winning boat in Seville was Karin Davies, who chose to row today with her undergraduate Radcliffe College eight, which finished in 11th place. The Canadian national team eight was runner-up to the Americans, who covered the course in 16 minutes 12.90 seconds, 4 seconds faster than the Canadians.

The American men's eight, which has now won the championship eight event for the eighth consecutive year, gained a modicum of revenge for its third-place finish behind Canada and Germany in the world championships.

Canada did not race today, but Germany did, finishing in ninth place, preceded by a number of American collegiate eights.

Wisconsin, last year's eastern sprint winner, finished second, 7 seconds behind the United States national eight. Northeastern, England's Cambridge University and Harvard rounded out the top five.

In the featured 550-meter Schwab Sprint, which carried a $30,000 prize for the three qualifiers in the men's and women's races, the Australian Olympian Duncan Free won for the second consecutive year.

He came from behind in the final 10 strokes to defeat two American scullers: Michael Perry, an unheralded graduate student at the University of Michigan, and the American national lightweight sculler Steve Tucker, who repeated his third-place finish of last year.

''It was definitely tougher than last year,'' Free said of his first-place finish and $7,500 prize. ''I just like being here and competing.''

Rumyana Neykova of Bulgaria, the reigning women's world champion single sculler, took the Schwab Sprint trophy and $7,500 in first-prize money.

Neykova's time of 1:59.64 was a second slower than the record set last year by Yekaterina Karsten, who withdrew before the qualifying race. Germany's Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski finished in second place, with the American Kristin Goodrich third.

Finals were decided in 22 separate events that make up the regatta, with the United States national team adding the men's four with coxswain trophy to its eights' victory. The Canadian entry won the women's four with coxswain event; the Americans did not compete.

The New York Athletic Club dethroned Yale, the two-time defending champion, to win the lightweight eight title, while Boston's Riverside Boat Club captured the women's lightweight title.

Photo: Two members of the United States men's crew team that won the championship eights yesterday in the Head of the Charles Regatta. (Associated Press)