Citing venue issues and lack of preparation time, the organizers of the venerable CRASH-B indoor rowing race announced on Friday, January 12th that they would be cancelling their regatta for 2024.
"This year we had a very difficult time locking in a date and location for the CRASH-Bs," the organization stated in an email to clubs that had already entered the planned 2024 event. "When we finally locked in a location, we thought even with the short time between announcing the date and the event, we would be able to put on a high level event. After reviewing everything we needed to accomplish to meet our expectations, we realized how difficult this would be. Rather than force an event that was not up to our standards, we reluctantly decided our only choice was to cancel the event for 2024. We are truly disappointed as well."
A change in the regatta date, from early March to February 4th, triggered a cascading series of hurdles that the regatta was ultimately unable to overcome, according to Rich Whelan, who has served in the role of commodore of the CRASH-B organization since this past August.
"What stimulated the change in the regatta date was feedback from rowing clubs and colleges and high schools that said, 'Hey, March is too late [for CRASH-Bs]. We need to be doing this in February,'" said Whelan. "When I look back at the history of CRASH-Bs, we have always done it around mid-February. It seemed like the last few years, we just started getting later in February and then early March, and we definitely saw an impact our numbers. Now there's much more competition, and we need make sure that we're scheduled at a time that makes the most sense for our competitors."
After changing the event date, the organization faced a scramble to find a suitable venue in time. With the switch to the earlier date, many of the regatta's traditional venues, including the '23 venue of the Track at New Balance, were unavailable.
"We reached out to just about every college, every facility you can imagine in the Boston area to find something that could work for us, and we found that most were already booked. And the ones that weren’t were really expensive, and that impacted how we have to look at running the event," said Whelan. "You also look for T accessibility, and we want to make sure that public transit will get the competitors there, for the ones that are traveling. Are we close to hotels? Little things like that.
"Unfortunately, when we sat down about a week and a half ago to review everything we needed to do for the race, from coordinating some things with vendors from the T shirts, the hammers (the most important thing we have at the race), the medals, coordinating volunteers, it was just a mountain of To-Dos. We looked at the time and said, 'You know what, we could do it, but it would impact the quality of the event.' As an event, we have high standards, and we didn't want to go below those standards, and that was when we decided, very reluctantly, to cancel the event, because because it didn't make sense to do in the time period that we had to do it."
Despite the CRASH-Bs' rich history as the first of the major (and international) erg competitions, dating back to its founding in 1981, it has not been immune to the winds of change, as well as the need to adjust to fit changing circumstances, and Whelan says that the CRASH-B organization will use the cancellation to set up the event for next year.
"My biggest priority is for our 2025 Event to be the elite event, the high quality event that is expected from the CRASH-Bs," he said. "After canceling this year, we can't come back in 2025 with an event that is anything less than perfect. That's my goal, to run as close to perfection as we possibly can, in every aspect of the event. From the location, the venue, the inclusiveness of the event and making sure that everything runs smoothly and perfectly, and that our competitors have that experience. Let's run the best event we could possibly run and take advantage of the time that we've gained, and the lessons we've learned over the last six months and move forward."
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