MONTREAL - The UBC Thunderbirds men's rowing team earned earned a silver medal and the women a bronze in the team standings at the Canadian University Rowing Association Championships held last weekend in Montreal.
Due to heavy winds Saturday in Montreal, the entire Championship schedule was compressed into one day of intense racing on Sunday. The Victoria Vikes emerged with men's banner on 95 points while the University of Western Ontario Mustangs took the women's title with 96. The T-Bird men narrowly lost out to their island rivals finishing second with 89 points while the women earned a bronze with 74 points, just one back of bronze medalists Queen's.
"We came into the Championships feeling confident in the make up of this year's team given the addition of some strong veteran lightweights, which really rounded out our group," said UBC head coach
Mike Pearce. "Adding [2008 Olympic gold medalist and alumni] Ben Rutledge to our staff was also a big boost this year and all in all we had a really great run up to this weekend."
When the racing got underway on Sunday, the morning started with the qualifying time trails and UBC went out strong winning both the men's lightweight double and coxed four and a third in the light single. The men's 8+ also took second in the time trial. Nearly every time trial was hotly contested and no more than a second or two separated crews in the five of six finals made by the T-Birds.
In the Finals, no single men's program would win more than one event and golds were won by UBC, UVic, Brock, UofT, McGill and Trent. The T-Bird lightweight men topped their peers with a silver in the double and coxed four and Maksim Kepskiy's gold medal haul in the single. The UBC heavy men took sixth and eigth in the single and pair and the heavy 8+ (6:07.1) just missed out on gold as UVic (6:03.8) took that race on their way to the overall tilte.
The T-Bird women raced well all day but struggled a bit early on in the most valued crew boats, the eight and lightweight coxed four, putting UBC at an early points deficit to Western and UVic. UBC turned in the medal performances with the women's pair (8:01.8) of Jody and Nicole Schurrman taking gold and Audra Vair's silver (8:31.0) in the single.
Individual awards were also handed out following the Championships with Michael Braithwaite (Toronto) and Sarah Black (Western) each earning their respective oarsman of the year awards. Vikes coach Howard Campbell earned Male Coach of the Year honours while Western's Mindy Bullen took home the honour in the women's competition.
FINAL TEAM STANDINGS (Top 5)
MEN:
1. Victoria, 95 points
2. UBC, 89
3. Brock, 70
4. Trent, 67
5. Western, 66
WOMEN
1. Western, 96 points
2. Queen's, 75
3. UBC, 74
4. Victoria, 71
5. Brock, 70
-30-
