Master rowers from the San Diego Rowing Club (SDRC) brought home six gold medals from the Southwest Regional Masters Championship held on July 10 on the Lake Merritt Sprint course in Oakland. In the regional sculling event, in which each athlete grips two oars, winners included Richard Yocum in the men’s single scull category; husband-and-wife team Cathy and Scott Kemper in the mixed double scull category; and Cathy Kemper and Pauline Gillis in the women’s double scull event for their age groups. In the sweep rowing event, in which each rower holds just one oar, two San Diego boats took first-place honors. In the coxed-four men’s races, club winners included John Jarvis, Jim Frager, Filip Sulc and Jeff Evans and Dave Frost, Andy Baxter, Berkeley Johnson and Art Sloate in their respective age brackets. The latter crew, which repeated its 2010 gold performance, is shown at left. The club’s men’s eight with coxswain performance was impacted by its loss of a rudder for the entire 1,000-meter race. The near-gold result (the team missing the gold by 13/100ths of a second) was a photo-finish, despite the unfortunate lack of steering. SDRC crews also took seven silver medals and three bronze medals in these annual regional events against some fast competitors from Oregon, Northern and Southern California, and Arizona. In masters rowing regattas, under the auspices of US Rowing, athletes from the ages of 23 years old up to 80-plus years of age race against crews of their same average age per boat. Next for the club’s masters rowers are the Masters National Championships to be held Aug. 11-14 on the Oklahoma River in Oklahoma City. The San Diego Rowing Club, founded in 1888, is one of the oldest sport clubs in the nation, with a proud tradition of juniors and masters rowing in San Diego. The Journal of San Diego History made the “Resilient History of the SDRC” its feature article for its spring 2011 edition. Club members row from the Coggeshall Rowing Center on El Carmel Point in Mission Bay. The SDRC welcomes anyone interested in learning about rowing — including adaptive rowers and Title I high school athletes. More information about the SDRC recreational and racing programs can be found online at www.sandiegorow-ing.org . For more information, call (858) 488.1893), or email [email protected].
