On Thursday, May 16th, Illinois Rowing traveled to Oak Ridge, Tennessee for the American Collegiate Rowing Association Championships. We raced every day through the 19th, and came away with some massive milestones for the program. This past weekend saw Illinois Rowing’s first ever medaling eight, with the women’s novice eight taking bronze, the second fastest 2k times in program history for both the men’s and women’s varsity eights, and a bronze medal in the women’s single, rowed by senior Kendall Blankenburg. In short, this was one of the most successful ACRAs in team history. This was reflected in our overall team points ranking, moving up 3 spots from last year. We improved on last year’s results across the board where comparable, and set ourselves up for even more success next year. Two athletes were also named to the all-Great Lakes region team, Gabriel Pfister representing the men, and Norah Harson the women. This was also our first regatta racing the new King 4+ Yama-Mama, with the novice men taking her to Oak Ridge.

Earlier this month, we made our annual trip down to Gainesville, Georgia for our spring break training trip. The team woke up bright and early on March 8th to begin our trek from campus to Lake Lanier Olympic Park. The trip was productive, with every boat making important technical improvements as we got on the water. We were very grateful to the several Illinois Rowing alumni who came out to act as guest coaches, who helped contribute to our development over the break. It was an exciting, yet tiring set of days as we got to work doing double or even triple sessions each day, getting in a lot of mileage and technical work.

With finals week wrapping up, it’s time for some updates on the Fall season this year. Full team practices ended Friday of last week with a few test pieces to wrap up the Fall. Overall, we had a great Fall season this year, and are ready for Spring, with everyone sent home with a training plan for the winter, in order to come back faster and stronger than ever.

Just 10 days ago, we published an article asking for your help raising money to purchase a King Racing Shells Coxed 4+. We asked for 14,000$, in order to make the down payment on the shell. You all, our friends, alumni, and families, raised over 20,000 dollars.

Our last news update, just a month ago, was on our major success in Boston, having both of our team’s boats automatically qualify for Head of the Charles 2024, in the coxed four events. Now, a month later, we need YOUR help to make sure we have the equipment we need to succeed again next year.