Women's Champ Singles

Gevvie’s Record Now Stands at Nine

By Jenna Ciccotelli — Posted on October 21, 2018

Amid cheers from the docks of the Weld Boathouse, where Radcliffe rowers have grown accustomed to cheering the Princeton grad who trains out of their boathouse, Gevvie Stone roared past one of the last participants in the men’s lightweight singles race on her way to her ninth women’s singles victory.

The Newton, Mass., native added to her record win total as she finished in a time of 18:59, over half a minute ahead of the second-place finisher, USTC-Princeton’s Kara Kohler.

“This was a lot more fun than last year,” Stone said. “I’m fitter than last year. The conditions were actually amazingly nice, given what the forecast was supposed to be.”

She said headwinds came into play near Weld and again later down the course, but did not have a major effect on her performance.

The 33-year-old’s record-setting win last year came as she was in the midst of her medical residency. This year, she is once again a full-time rower; she has taken a leave if absence from her residency in order to race in the Tokyo Olympics. Her last shift of the year at Beth Israel Deaconness was August 15.

As Stone passed Weld, she also passed the last participants in the men’s lightweight singles. The company on the river was exciting for the leader, but for Felice Mueller and Kara Kohler, who started just behind Stone in bow positions two and three, the crowded waters were troubling.

Mueller and Kohler ran into some congestion around the horseshoe turn just before the Cambridge Boat Club, which sent the male rower into the water and took time off of Kohler’s finish and saw Mueller cross the line in sixth.

“It’s really fun to chase down lightweight guys,” Stone said. “I had a ball. I had something to chase. That actually made it a much more fun race for me, but it just stinks. You want your competitors to have the best race.”

Having grown up attending the regatta and now training on the river, Stone says there is absolutely a home field advantage. It’s both athletic, with Stone able to practice turning and looking behind her to prepare for the winding course and traffic on race days, and emotional, as she has rowed out to cheers from Weld, home of the Ratcliffe crew, for the past 11 years.

“There’s good motivation and peer pressure to row well,” she said. “I feel like they know me.”