Four Wayland/Weston crew alums compete in World Rowing Championships

When Sarah Maietta was a kid, figure skating was her sport of choice. Her dad’s sport of choice, however? She was all set.

“I was adamant I wasn’t going to row,” said Maietta over the phone last week.

Maietta’s father, Chris, had rowed at Phillips Academy (Andover) and a bit at Boston University. In 2000, he helped found the Wayland-Weston crew team, a co-operative varsity sport for girls and boys at Wayland or Weston High. Still, even while growing up around the sport, young Sarah Maietta wasn’t itching to plunge the oar into Lake Cochituate. That is, until the summer of 2012, before her freshman year at Wayland High.

By her own account, Sarah Maietta had “gotten too tall to figure skate.” So she figured she’d finally take a crack at grabbing an oar, to see what the fuss was about. She went to rowing camp for a week. She liked it. Then she participated in the fall novice season for Wayland/Weston. She enjoyed that as well.

Ten years later, that fuss brought Maietta, along with three other Wayland/Weston rowing alums, to the sport’s premier event. Four Wayland-Weston Crew alumni raced in the 2022 World Rowing Championships in Račice, Czech Republic.

“Competing against 35-year-olds, several Olympic gold medalists, to share a boatyard and share a water sheet with them, it’s a different experience,” Maietta said. “It’s similar to the U23 events in terms of the general setup, but it’s a much faster pace.”

The village of Račice is home to around 300 people as well as the Czech Republic’s Olympic-caliber, 1.25-mile rowing course. The population tripled during worlds, as 900 world-class athletes from 65 countries raced in 14 Olympic, six International and nine para/adaptive categories.

And these four from the 22-year-old W-W program were all a part of the action.

Representing the United States

Rowing for the U.S. was Kristina Wagner, a 2011 Weston High and 2015 Yale University alum and 2021 Olympian, in the women’s double sculls event; 2014 Weston and 2018 Tufts University alum Ashton Knight in lightweight men’s quadruple sculls; Maietta, a 2016 Wayland and 2020 Boston University alum, in lightweight women’s quadruple sculls; and Jakub Buczek, a 2012 Wayland and 2016 Columbia University alum as well as a 2021 Olympian, rowing for Canada in the men’s eight event. Coaching the U.S. Paralympic 2 women’s single scull entry was Beth Noll, a former member of Wayland-Weston’s board of directors.

Most of the athletes stayed in Prague, about 40 miles south of Račice.

“It looks like a Disney fairytale, in terms of the buildings, the churches,” Maietta said. “But I didn’t really get a lot of time to explore.”

Competing in the lightweight women's sculls, Maietta was part of a boat that took second out of two (with Italy winning) in both the preliminary race and the final. In international competition, lightweight women’s crews must average 125.6 pounds with no rower over 130 pounds, and lightweight men’s crews must average 154.3 pounds with no rower over 159.8 pounds.

Lightweight events have not been a part of Olympic competition since 2016, Maietta noted, hence only two boats entered.

"The effect is rowing federations in different countries not putting money into it," she said. "So in terms of putting together a lightweight quad, at a non-Olympic event, countries don’t have the funding to. And since we are so close to Paris (2024 Summer Olympics), there were only two entries."

Not that the lack of other entries changed Maietta and her crew teammates' approach. Only having five weeks of training with them, she did admit that it was the crew equivalent of parachuting into the competition. But the connections she built provided her biggest takeaway from her time abroad.

“I think all the time I spent in the boat with that crew was special,” said Maietta. “Because it was so new, every time we got on the water, we made improvements, learned something new. The attitude of the teammates and the focus and the talent, it was amazing to be around during those two weeks in the environment of world championships.”

Of the other Wayland-Weston alums, Wagner finished fifth in the women's double sculls, Knight placed fifth in the lightweight men's quadruple sculls and Buczek placed fifth in the men's eights. Noll coached her Paralympic 2 women's single sculls team to a fourth-place finish.

This marked the first world championships since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maietta, like any rower who has gotten a taste of elite international competitions, would love to have the Olympics in her future.

“I’ll continue to work hard training at a high level,” she said. “I’ll continue to train and race as long as is fun for me. If it’s still fun and it’s something I want to do and learn from, I’ll keep doing it. I don’t know how long that will be, but as it’s a sport with a lack of impact on the body, you can get faster and compete at a high level into your 40s.  … I still think of myself as young and new to this.”

But first comes what Maietta calls "Rowing Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's" all rolled into one, the Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge Oct. 21-23. She will be competing with Sarasota (Fla.) Crew, a group she trained with last year while teaching a middle-school rowing team in the area.

Head of the Charles Regatta up next

This will be her ninth Head of the Charles.

"It's a fabulous event everyone should go to, provided the weather is good," she said. "I enjoy the diversity of rowing levels at the event, one the rowing community can share from 85-year-olds to high schoolers."

And even, perhaps, the disinterested kid.

"I’m told I watched my first Head of the Charles from the dock at (Harvard's) Weld Boathouse at 4 years old. I remember being at the parking lot at Harvard Business School, bundled up so tightly and complaining that I had on too many layers. It's a very clear memory to me."

And while she didn't know it at the time, a rower's journey was beginning.

Tim Whelan Jr. is the sports director for the MetroWest Daily News, Milford Daily News and Wicked Local. Follow him on Twitter @thattimwhelan.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Four Wayland/Weston crew alums compete in World Rowing Championships