Saturday March, 11 members of the Rustler rowing team competed in the AB Indoor Rowing Championships held in Blackfalds, AB.
Team members raced in five different events and placed very well in competition with rowers from several teams including both the U of Alberta and U of Calgary.
Our four Senior women raced in three events including Sen A women (AlleciaMcDonald ), Sen B women (Rayna Bender and Lauren Sayers) and a combined Sen women lightweight event where we struck gold with Grace Churchill leading the way ahead of the silver and bronze winners from U of Calgary.
Three of our Novice Women raced in the senior event (Grace Bielecki, Kaylee Stadnyk and Stephanie Ullrich) in which Stephanie cruised to gold just ahead of teammate Kaylee for silver, both of them beating a large contingent from the U of Calgary.
Three of our four men competing in the Novice Men’s Senior event (Derek Campbell, Ty Holden and Wyatt Dolan) also had great races finishing 1, 3, 4 in the first heat and looked good for medals. Unfortunately, the second heat with our fourth Nov Man (Kamen Korejbo) was the faster heat knocking them out of the medals.
The men got some retribution in the final event of the day, the four-person relay, where Lakeland entered three teams. For this race Ty and Derek teamed up with Kaylee and Stephanie to take silver in what was a very close race with the U of Calgary entry.
The four senior women, Allecia, Lauren, Rayna and Grace C teamed-up in the relay to post the best time for an all women’s team. Our third relay team was a composite of Sen Nov men Wyatt Dolan, Kamen Korejbo, Nov woman Grace Bielecki and coach Derek Collins.
As well Lakeland coaches Peter Walsh and DerekCollins won gold and bronze respectively in the Master Men’s event.
At the end of the day our haul of 6 medals including three gold was probably one of best results we have had at these championships since before the Covid outbreak. As well the personal bests achieved by so many of the Rustler Crew was outstanding and a testament to all of the hard work over those cold dark winter days… it was also a pretty quiet van ride home.
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