“That is an American dynasty, baby,” Susan Francia crowed this summer after the US women’s eight had continued its planetary reign with another gold medal at Olympus. Along with world championships, the number of titles is seven straight and counting, and nobody is betting against the Americans pulling off a three-peat at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

No crew in history has achieved what the US eight already has accomplished, and none of its rivals has anything close to the breadth and depth of the feeder system that keeps pushing talent up to the elite level.