Maple Bay Rowing Club held their annual regatta this past weekend under sunny skies.
Ten rowing clubs with a total of 223 entries made up the event’s participants with Maple Bay, Brentwood College School, and Shawnigan Lake School representing the Cowichan Valley’s talent with 18, 32, and 18 entries respectively.
“The weather gods ruled in our favour this year,” admitted event organizer Dave Symonds. “We turned over a new leaf as a regatta and went to a two day format. This provided all the athletes the opportunity to test their race plan in a heat and make any adjustments for their final, giving them two races in each event. Many races saw some tight racing and exciting finishes.”
Sporting MBRC colours were: Jordan Volk, Rylan Deck, Reid Williams, Robert Lazenby, Nathan Irvine, Ronan Cristea, Amity Watt, Agata Minka, Quinlin Campbell, Banjamin LaCroix, Ronan McGeachy, and Silar Miller, along with Oliver Price, Noah Creek-Boudreault, Oliver McKenzie-Kissinger, Bradaigh Bridger-Taft, Oliver Balcom, Hunter Nickerson, Ashley Pepper, Sierra Preikshot, Ava Roe, Sadie Wood, Makenzie Bennett, Clara van Muiswinkel, and Isis Koyote.
Minka won the U19 women’s 1x.
Placing second were MBRC’s U17 women’s 4x- crew (Wood, Roe, Pepper and Preikshot) and the U17 men’s 2x (Nickerson and Bridger-Taft). MBRC also placed second in the U15 men’s 2x (Deck and Volk).
Third places finishes for MBRC included the U17 women’s 4+ (Wood, Roe, Preikshot, Pepper, and coxed by Volk), U19 men’s 4+ (Makenzie-Kissinger, Ikumari, Creek-Boudreault, Price, and coxed by Minka), and U17 men’s 4x- (Nickerson, Balcom, Cristea and Bridger-Taft).
Brentwood won five events, placed second in five, third in one, and fourth in four events while Shawnigan posted wins in two events, were runners-up in three races, placed third in three, and fourth in one.
Other clubs attending included Claremont Sports Institute, Nanaimo Rowing Club, St. Michael’s University School, Victoria City Rowing Club, Salt Spring Rowing Club, Vancouver Rowing Club and Shuswap Rowing and Paddling Club.
Members of the Canadian national team were also on hand racing.
“On Saturday, over the lunch break, the national team athletes vying for positions at Olympic qualifying events held three practice races down the course,” Symonds noted. “In the last race of the day on Sunday, the women’s national team 8+ joined in with the U19 men’s 8+ final to simulate racing conditions. It was standing room only to watch this exciting finish and everyone cheered them loudly towards their final preparations for Paris.”
MBRC has upcoming come-try days as well as learn to row programs and Youth Summer Camps available, and details can be found on the website https://maplebayrowingclub.ca