Weekend Wrap: RowOn Championships Take Over Welland
The 2024 RowOn Championships headlined this past weekend in Ontario rowing as competitors from across the province and the United States flocked to Welland, ON for the two-day event. While the flatwater provincial championships were taking place in Ontario, beach sprints, the newest Olympic rowing discipline, was getting its moment to shine on the national stage as the RCA National Beach Sprint Selection Trials took place in Lunenburg County, NS.
One of the highlights of this year’s edition of the RowOn Championships was a formatting change which was designed to create a more competitive and better-quality race experience for the competitors. All events followed a time trial to seeded finals format, with the time trials running on Saturday and all but a few of the finals running on Sunday. Athletes were placed into finals based on a collective ranking of all trial results for their event, regardless of age or weight category, to provide an opportunity for rowers to race others of similar speed. The changes resulted in many competitive and exciting final races during an action-packed Sunday morning and afternoon.
A total of 567 boats participated in the event from 29 clubs in men’s and women’s singles, doubles, pairs, fours, quads and eights in U15, U17, U19, U23 and Open age divisions. Six American clubs attended the annual regatta with 23 Ontario clubs represented. Both days featured temperatures in the high-20’s with mostly calm conditions on the water. Some cloud cover on Sunday was a nice reprieve for the rowers who completed their time trials on Saturday, in some cases in several boats, under a hot July sun.
Out of the 23 participating Ontario clubs, 16 earned medals and 13 brought home gold medals. Leading the way with gold medals was the St. Catharines Rowing Club who earned 14, followed by the Kingston Rowing Club and Notre Dame Rowing Club with eight. Next on the gold medal tally was the South Niagara Rowing Club with six, the Ottawa Rowing Club and Niagara Falls Rowing Club with five and the Leander Boat Club and Western University with four. Other clubs who reached the top-step of the podium this weekend were the Peterborough Rowing Club (3), Ridley College (3), Hanlan Boat Club (2), Argonaut Rowing Club (2), Orillia Rowing Club (1), Cincinnati Jr. Rowing Club (1) and Pittsford Crew (1). Other Ontario clubs earning medals were the Guelph Rowing Club, Don Rowing Club and Ridley Graduate Boat Club.
On the beach sprints front, the RCA National Beach Sprint Trials were also contested over two days at Risser’s Beach and co-hosted by Rowing Canada Aviron and Row Nova Scotia. The event served as a selection event for a chance to represent Canada at the World Rowing Beach Sprint Championships in Genoa, Italy from Sept. 13-15. The categories contested at the two-day event were the men’s and women’s open and U19 solo, U19 women’s double, mixed U19 double and mixed open double. Ontario was well represented at the event with 24 of the 44 boat entries. Participating Ontario clubs included the Don Rowing Club, Hanlan Boat Club, Kingston Rowing Club, Leander Boat Club, Orillia Rowing Club and Ridley Graduate Boat Club.
Sarah Pidgen (Don Rowing Club) continued her winning ways in the beach sprint discipline, claiming the women’s solo gold medal over Lucy MacLeod (North Star Rowing) in the final in a time of 3:04.7. Pidgen, a beach sprints veteran who has competed at multiple beach sprint world championships and who also won the RowOn Beach Sprint Championships in June, had the fastest time in qualifying and topped the Ridley Graduate Boat Club’s Caitlin Pauls in the semi-finals to advance to the finals. Pauls would go on to pick up the bronze medal with a victory in the B Final over Rowing BC’s Patricia Mara.
The victory in the women’s solo was one of two gold medals on the weekend for Pidgen as she teamed up with Aubrey Oldham (Leander Boat Club) to win the open mixed double. With nine entries, the open mixed double was the most competitive event of the weekend, and after posting the fastest time in the time trials by one second, Pidgen and Oldham advanced to the finals after winning their quarter and semi-finals races by over 20 seconds each. They faced off with Mara and Julien Bahain (OARCA) and won the closest final race of the day by just over three seconds (2:35.6). Bahain and Oldham also faced off in the men’s open solo final, which Bahain won by five seconds in a time of 2:45.0.
In junior action, Autumn Prior of the Orillia Rowing Club won the junior women’s solo in a time of 3:24.2, while Oliver Brennan of the Kingston Rowing Club won the junior men’s solo with a winning time of 3:13.6. Brennan picked up his second gold medal of the weekend in the mixed junior double, teaming up with club mate Kaie Bain for the victory. The junior women’s double was won by Rachel Nicolaidis and Ella Rose Duval of the Montreal Rowing Club. Overall, Ontario rowers earned 13 of the 20 available medals.
For full results from the RowOn Championships, visit RegattaCentral
For full results from the RCA National Beach Sprint Trials, visit RegattaCentral
