With announcement of U23 Championships, rowing profile in Sarasota continues to rise

Whenever it seems like rowing can’t become a bigger deal within the Sarasota sports scene, it somehow does.

That trend continued this week, when on Tuesday, USRowing and Nathan Benderson Park announced the park as the host for the 2019 World Rowing Under-23 Championships, to be held next July. It will be the first time the U23 event is held outside of Europe.

USRowing CEO Patrick McNerney said the bid is part of the organization's effort to "reinvest" in the area after the World Rowing Championships. Visit Sarasota County president Virginia Haley said the deal came together over six months, starting in late November, and said the organization's relationships with FISA, USRowing, the park and the Bradenton Area Sports Commission, which have strengthened over the last few years, were the reason it was able to get done so quickly. Haley also said the deal was about more than money.

"Yes, it's tourism," Haley said. "Yes, it's economic impact. But we're also changing the lives of Sarasota and Manatee counties' young people, and that's a great feeling."

The announcement came 16 days after the park was announced as the host of the 2019, 2020 and 2021 USRowing Youth Rowing Championships. When asked if USRowing wanted Sarasota to be a future hub for the organization’s activities, McNerny was effusive.

“We are looking at ways we can further intwine ourselves with the community here,” McNerny said. “It’s a great venue with great facilities. We actually host camps here. It’s not something that gets publicized very often, but one of our national team coaches (Casey Galvanek) is based here in Sarasota. We have had eight of our elite women training here for the last five months, preparing for the World Championships, and you can expect to see that grow. So, the answer is yes.”

For their part, local rowing clubs are determined to raise the sport’s profile even further. Sarasota Crew girls coach Kirby Gallie, who has been with the team since 2011, said the sport has exploded in her seven years, and the next 12 months have the potential to add to that. The Crew is offering camps and “learn-to-rows” for people inspired by the big events at Benderson Park. The Title IX law has also helped the sport’s popularity, she said. The more NCAA schools that offer rowing, the more scholarship opportunities exist for high school athletes, and the likelihood of an athlete seeing rowing as a viable way to attend college increases. Collegiate rowing eases people’s anxiety about making a national team, Gaille said. It’s more achievable, even though this area has produced many national team rowers. With the Crew’s history of finding success at a national level themselves, Gaille is optimistic for the future.

“I think it (rowing’s popularity) can only go up, to be honest,” Gallie said. “It’s pretty great. I hope people pay attention to the World Championships and the Olympics (in 2020) and get into the spirit.”

Sarasota Scullers president Seth Koplin said he considers the area to be the “No. 1 rowing venue in the South,” including Lake Lanier, which hosted Olympic rowing when the event came to Atlanta in 1996. More and more people are thinking of it the same way. Is there a chance Sarasota could overtake Boston and Philadelphia as the top rowing destination in the United States? Koplin said it’s possible, but unlikely. If it does happen, it’ll be because the area establishes a “head race” that the top teams in the country want to compete in annually. A head race, as opposed to a typical sprint race (like what is performed at world championships), sees each shell start 30 seconds after each other, so they are only racing the clock, not each other. Head races (5,000 meters) are also longer than sprint races (2,000 meters).

The Scullers are hosting such a race, the Battle of the Brides, in Venice on Sept. 15. Koplin thinks, in four to five years, this race could be the one that sends Sarasota over the top. Even if it doesn’t, he knows the area is going to go down in the sport’s history, and he think everyone should be a part of it.

“What Sarasota can become is the new renaissance of rowing,” Koplin said. “It will change rowing forever. I don’t know what that’s going to look like exactly, but it will change how rowing is perceived in this country. There are so many different types of people trying it out. When you race at Benderson, it’s an encouraging environment. That has now culminated in a diverse rowing community.”