Voting Opens for Row Ontario’s Performance of the Year Award

Nominees

Autumn Prior

Club: Orillia Rowing Club
Regatta: RowOn Beach Sprint Championships
Results: 1st – U19 Women’s Solo, 1st – U19 Women’s Double, 1st – U19 Mixed Double

The Orillia Rowing Club’s Autumn Prior was the biggest winner at the 2024 RowOn Beach Sprint Championships finishing in first place in all three races she competed in. She began her day in the U19 women’s solo event, where she earned the number one seed in the competition by posting the fastest time in the time trial, which earned her a bye to the semi-final round. After winning her semi-final by 18 seconds she advanced to the final where she placed first in a time of 2:47.07. She then switched gears to doubles racing in the afternoon where she teamed up with her clubmates Molly Hazel in the U19 women’s double and Sam Pecorella in U19 mixed double respectively. In the mixed double, Prior and Pecorella earned their gold medal in a close race, winning by just over two seconds (2:26.42), while Prior and Hazel claimed their gold final by just over three seconds (2:52.91).

Prior was the only 3x gold medalist at the event and including time trials competed in nine total races during throughout the day. Prior would go on later in the 2024 season to win U19 women’s championship at the RCA National Beach Sprint Trials in July and compete in the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals in Genoa, Italy in September.

Giancarlo DiPompeo & Owen Kudreikis

Club: St. Catharines Rowing Club
Regatta: World Rowing MEGA Championships
Results: 4th place – U23 Lightweight Men’s Double

Competing on their home waters in front of an international audience, Giancarlo DiPompeo and Owen Kudreikis delivered a great performance and came up just shy of the podium at the 2024 MEGA World Rowing Championships in the U23 Lightweight Men’s Double. Coached by the SCRC’s Mike Petrychanko the duo opened their regatta with a fourth place finish in the opening heat, sending them to the repechage round. There, they led for the first half of the race and finished in second place, sending them to the A Final. In the final, they again led the race at the 1000m mark but fell just short of a medal, coming in fourth in a time of 6:20.35.

The U23 LWM2x was one of the deepest boat classes (nine) at the World Championships and the crews fourth place finish could be considered the top result for a Canadian boat. In addition to their great performance at Worlds, DiPompeo and Kudreikis won the Senior Men’s Lightweight the 2024 Royal Canadian Henley.

LWRC Masters Rowers

Club: London Western Rowing Club
Regatta: World Rowing Masters Regatta
Results: 2 Gold Medals, 3 Silver Medals, 6 Bronze Medals

The World Rowing Masters Regatta ran from Sept. 11-15 in Brandenburg, Germany on the Beetzsee Regatta Course. The massive regatta featured almost 5000 entries from 721 clubs from across the world, with 51 countries represented at the event. A total of 12 clubs from Canada participated in the regatta, including the London Western Rowing Club who sent the largest contingent.

The LWRC members participated in 16 different boats and came away with a total of 11 Top-3 finishes. London’s masters rowers performed admirably throughout the five-day competition, earning two first-place finishes, three second-place finishes, and six third-place finishes in their respective finals. Many of the LWRC’s athletes competed in several races throughout the week with some earning multiple medals.

Clara Van Dyk

Club: South Niagara Rowing Club / ONGPC
Regatta: 2024 RowOn Championships
Results: 1st place – Women’s Single

Clara Van Dyk earned her first provincial championship in July with an outstanding performance in the women’s single at the 2024 RowOn Championships. Van Dyk, who trained with the Ontario NextGen Performance Centre for three years, was competing as a U23 lightweight and outpaced all the other competitors to earn herself multiple gold medals and the overall fastest time. She opened her regatta by placing third in the time trials in a time of 7:59.64 to qualify for the A Final later in the day. In the final, she impressed even more by winning the race by almost four seconds in a time of 8:07.50.

Following the summer season Van Dyk took her rowing talents to Kentucky where she now competes with the Louisville Cardinals in the NCAA.

Isabella and Zoe Durcak

Club: Brock Rowing
Regatta: 2024 OUA Rowing Championships
Results: 1st place – Women’s Pair / 1st place – Lightweight Women’s Double

Isabella and Zoe Durcak had an impressive 2024 OUA Rowing Championships, bringing home two gold medals for the Brock Badgers. The duo earned gold in both the lightweight women’s double and women’s pair, competing in the open race for the latter, making their fourth OUA Championships all the more impressive. They won both of the opening heats they competed in, finished 11 seconds ahead of 2nd place in the double and battled to the line to win by just under two seconds in the pair. Their performance earned them the OUA Rowing Female Athlete of the Year Award.

Nigel Radhakrishnan

Club: Kingston Rowing Club
Regatta: 2024 RowOn Championships
Results: 1st place – U23 Men’s Single (2nd place overall) / 1st place – U23 Men’s Lightweight Double (2nd place overall)

The weight of medals around Nigel Radhakrishnan’s neck after the 2024 RowOn Championships was almost as impressive as his results on the regatta course. Radhakrishnan competed in two events over the weekend and earned eight total medals (we think – see picture). The U23 lightweight rower placed second overall in the men’s single earning himself a silver in the open category, and a gold in the Senior Lightweight, U23 Lightweight and U23 Open category. He also teamed with KRC partner Joshua Leung in the men’s double to bring home a silver in the Senior and Open categories and gold in the Senior Lightweight and U23 Lightweight categories. What a medal haul for Nigel!

Virginia Gates

Club: Niagara Falls Rowing Club
Regatta: 2024 Nancy Storrs Ontario Indoor Rowing Championships
Results: 1st place – Junior High School Women (Broke 24-year-old event record)

With only one year of rowing under her belt, Virginia Gates started her second year by joining in with the Niagara Falls Rowing Club’s indoor training program. She set goals to train hard and improve her overall results in the coming (2024) indoor and outdoor rowing season. In her first major indoor competition of the year, The Nancy Storrs Ontario Indoor Rowing Championships, she started off her 2024 with the great accomplishment of winning gold in the Junior High School Women event and breaking the 24-year-old record with a time of 07:17.

This great performance at this event was an indication of where Gates would take her rowing career. This event was the motivation and the stepping stone to many other great performances in 2024 by Gates, including two CSSRA gold medals in Junior single and senior double, U17 Ontario Champs gold and 3 Top three finishes at Henley. All these were great accomplishments in 2024 but they all stemmed from her first and greatest performance of the year at the Nancy Storrs Ontario Indoor Rowing Championships.

Charlotte Hastings

Club: Argonaut Rowing Club
Regatta: 2024 Royal Canadian Henley Regatta
Results: 3rd Place – U19 Women’s 4+, 5th place U19 Women’s 8+

Charlotte Hastings was the coxswain for both the U19 Women’s 4+ and 8+ that entered the Royal Canadian Henley in 2024. In the 8+, they achieved a team-best finish of fifth place in the final, in an extremely close race that came down to only two seconds between Argos and a podium finish. They were the only Canadian crew to make it to the final. In the 4+, Hastings led her crew to an all-time best finish of third place, making them the top finishing club boat in the event, only being beaten by composite crews from Ridley and Cambridge. The Royal Canadian Henley Regatta can be a gruelling experience with 7 days of high-level, high-stress racing in unpredictable conditions. Hastings managed to be a positive, calming influence through the whole regatta. During the week of competition, she expertly led her teammates through the many challenges, obstacles, and setbacks that come with high performance competition, and the results that her team achieved are a testament to her skill as a coxswain and leader. The whole team knew that without her maturity, level-headedness, and competitive spirit, they wouldn’t have been able to compete at the level they did.

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