RowingRelated

The 2020 California Challenge Cup will continue a growing tradition, but with modifications to the format that the hosts hope will increase its impact, now and into the future. While the origins of the race (formerly known as the UC Challenge Cup) can be traced back to UC Irvine Men's Rowing founder, Duvall Hecht , the modern incarnation of the regatta has aspirations of scaling to involve every California rowing program. When : Saturday, February 29 | 7am Pacific Time Where : Newport Beach, California | View interactive map How to Watch : Livestream of the event via Vimeo Full Results : ClockCaster Here, we catch up with UCI Men's Rowing head coach, and California Challenge Cup organizer, Austin Brooks, on the new format and outlook for the future. RowingRelated: When you first started this tradition, was it always the goal for it to grow to this level? What was the inspiration behind the California Challenge Cup? Austin Brooks: The UC Challenge Cup was actual...

The UCSB Crew boathouse (Screen capture) This week's video comes to us from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where the 2014-2015 Gaucho men's and women's crews had one of the most successful spring seasons in the history of the program.

The famous finish line tower at Lake Lanier (Photo: A.J. Brooks) The 2015 American Collegiate Rowing Championships, celebrating the best of the best in intercollegiate club rowing in the United States, showed once again that the level that it takes to reach the top of the podium continues to rise in the club ranks.

The 2015 ACRA Championships are set to begin tomorrow morning on the 1996 Olympic course at Lake Lanier, Georgia, and, well, it just wouldn't be right if we didn't take the opportunity to shoot our mouths off and throw some picks and predictions out there. Feel free to use them as motivation—anything to fuel the fire. Warning: Opinions will follow. Started rowing in Georgia this morning on the 1996 Olympic course #ACRA2015 A photo posted by Bucknell Men's Crew (@bucknellcrew) on May 21, 2015 at 12:02pm PDT The men's varsity eight event this year will be a barn burner, with more heat coming from teams out West than in previous seasons. As evidenced by San Diego Crew Classic and later Newport Regatta (see video below), both UCSB and the UC Irvine Anteaters are looking strong—the Anteaters got the better of the Gauchos at WIRAs , as did Washington State , and UC Irvine followed up that performance with a victory in Newport Harbor (a first for the program...

UC Irvine launches for the final (Photo courtesy of A.J. Brooks) The UC Irvine men and Stanford women continued their recent run of success at WIRAs over the weekend, with the Anteaters taking first place in the men's varsity eight (just as they did in 2013), while the Cardinal swept all three eights events they entered. For both programs, however, it has also been a year of adjustments, as newly appointed head coach Derek Byrnes took the reins in Palo Alto last October, and UCI's  A.J. Brooks is in his first year as head coach. But you wouldn't know it from the margin of victory, in either case.