Six boats from the Maritime Rowing Club won gold medals at last weekend's USRowing Masters Nationals in Camden, N.J. The club took home 16 medals overall, including three silvers and seven bronzes.
Competing against more than 1,500 boats from 151 clubs, MRC's women placed sixth, winning first place in all sculling categories -- singles, doubles and quads. Bronze and silver medals were also captured in all categories, including silver for the mixed (men and women) quad.
"We had a great time and some great races," said team member Claire Schoen. "It's always very exciting to be up against national-level competitors -- for many of us, rowing is a relatively new sport. But we've got great coaches and we trained hard. It paid off!"
MRC competed in19 of the 53 national title races. The women's team -- which competed only in sculling events -- placed sixth overall compared with clubs that competed in both sweep and sculling events.
Some of the highlights included races won by less than 1½ seconds: Women's Club E 4X winning gold (Liane Douglas, Claire Schoen, Gay Gasser, Mary Ellen Flaherty-Ludwig); Mixed Open F 4X (Eric Dannemann, Fred Krupp, Laurie Devitt, Leslie Freed) capturing silver against a team that included a former Olympic champion; and Meredith Collins and Mary Borque winning the Women's Lightweight C 2X by less than a second.
Joanne Dietz of Norwalk won the Women's Open G 1x for the second year in a row. Leslie Freed of Stamford competed in six races (the maximum allowed per competitor) and came home with five medals -- three gold, one silver and one bronze. Meredith Collins of Westport competed and medaled in every sculling category -- single, double and quad.
In addition to the competitive program, Maritime Rowing Club offers Learn-to-Row and Junior rowing programs. Visit its website for more information.
Click here to follow Daily Voice and receive free news updates.
