BY CHIP DAVIS | PHOTO BY LISA WORTHY
The 2023 Best Of series features the athletes, events, and moments that mattered in the year in rowing.
Event of the Year Honorable Mention: USRowing Youth National Championships
The existence of a single unified and recognized youth national championship is the greatest non-Olympic accomplishment of USRowing in the last century. Before the 1990s, multiple regattas claimed, unconvincingly, to be the national championship. That all changed when the national governing body inaugurated the youth national championship in the mid-90’s, an event that continues bigger and better than ever at Florida’s Nathan Benderson Park, America’s world-class rowing venue.
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Covid disrupted the regatta, and a bungled attempt at a “stay-to-play” hotel-revenue scheme by USRowing ruffled feathers, but the introduction of age-based events instead of lightweight categories for minors has been a positive evolution and a credit to the United States Rowing Association (USRowing’s proper name). The 2023 USRowing Youth National Championship Regatta, during which 4,000 athletes vied for more than 30 national titles, was the pinnacle of American youth rowing and sculling.
