PRINCETON, N.J. - When USRowing announced in 2013 to limit the number of Olympic class crews it would support in an effort to increase the number of medal chances in the 2016 Rio Olympics, the association also called for rowing clubs across the country to train, fund and produce elite level athletes that could compete on the world stage.
The plan, designed by USRowing Director of High Performance Curtis Jordan, made clear that USRowing would help fund any crew that produced results in international competition as the four-year Olympic cycle progressed.
In a 2013 open letter to the rowing community, Jordan wrote, "USRowing is financially constrained, but the United States rowing community has a rich history of supporting its athletes. The U.S. is fortunate to have these clubs and communities that can support individuals who want to pursue small boat and sculling competition.
"As an organization, USRowing wants to do more to empower and encourage these entities to develop and support this group of American rowers/scullers into medal-winning crews. With USRowing focusing on a limited number of boats and allowing more events to be selected through trials, a larger portion of the athlete base can be supported through clubs and their communities."
Jordan wrote "as these boat classes prove themselves in international competition, USRowing will recognize these athletes and clubs and add to their support as the four-year cycle progresses. Supported events will be evaluated each year after the world championships and may be added or removed depending on performance."
Today, USRowing is pleased to announce that in recognition of results produced by at least four U.S. rowing communities and clubs, including the Boston Rowing Federation, California Rowing Club, Craftsbury Sculling Center and Vesper Boat Club, it is going to seek funding from the United States Olympic Committee to help fund any crew that makes a final at the 2015 World Rowing Championships August 29-Sept. 6, 2015 in Aiguebelette, France.
"We put this on the rowing community to produce and they have produced and we plan on asking the USOC for funding for these crews," Jordan said Tuesday. "We'll use the world championships as a marker. If they make the final, we will give funding to those athletes."
In talking about the clubs that have proven themselves, Jordan specifically pointed out the success these clubs have had since the start of the 2016 cycle, including a CRC silver medal in the lightweight women's double at the 2013 World Rowing Championships and world cup, Craftsbury's men's quad taking a bronze medal at world cup 3 last year, the performances of Boston Rowing Federation's Gevvie Stone (Newton, Mass.), who was second in the women's single at the 2015 World Rowing Cup 2 and third at world cup 3, and the Vesper lightweight women's double winning a bronze medal, also at world cup 3 this past weekend.
"These boats have stepped up and we want to support that by helping fund their training," Jordan said. "This is what we said we would do in 2013."
According to Jordan, any athletes outside of the USRowing training camp system or who are non-funded that make the finals in France would be provided funding of "no less than five-thousand dollars each athlete with the final amount not being determined until we receive our grant from the USOC and the National Rowing Foundation this fall. This funding will be on top of any performance reimbursements already established for these boats.
"We are proud of our clubs and rowing communities and proud to be able to support their efforts. There have always been two pathways to make the national team, either through the training centers or through the trials system while training in a high performance club or community. The strength and productivity of our clubs and communities is vital to a healthy national team as well as providing better options and experience for out athlete pool," Jordan said.