Rowers show determination and spirit throughout the challenge
The Gryphon rowing team challenged themselves to a 100 km ergathon in the University Centre to raise funds and awareness for the team on Thursday, March 16.
The rowers split themselves into teams of two to four to row the 100 km, while second-year Aidan Hickie-Bentzen made a daring solo attempt at the challenge.
National team member and Gryphon athlete Carly Zanatta also rowed on her own, as she successfully broke the world record marathon time in the lightweight rowers’ 19 to 29-year-old category with a time of 3:01:46.An ergometer is an indoor rowing machine that is calibrated to measure the amount of energy that is being put out by the person using it.
Working hard on this machine means travelling a further distance over a shorter amount of time—something that all of the rowers were trying to accomplish with their 100 km goal.
The event began at 9:30 a.m. as the teams prepared for what would be almost eight hours of rowing in hopes to raise money to buy new equipment for the team.
“Rowing is a very expensive sport in terms of equipment—our boats are expensive, same with the oars,” said Sarah Vantfoort, president of the Guelph rowing executive. “We don’t get a lot of funding from the school, so it’s important that we fundraise so that athletes don’t have to pay a crazy amount for their sport.”
[media-credit id=115 align=”aligncenter” width=”1020″]
With other schools competing with nicer equipment, the Guelph team needs to purchase new gear in order to keep up with the competition.
“Right now we’re looking to raise money to buy new equipment—new oars and new ergs—our ergs are all the older editions and we don’t have enough to all be rowing at the same time,” said Megan Kamachi a fourth-year member of the team. “Our oars are old as well and we find that we are kind of behind the rest of the teams.”
While the main part of the varsity rowing season comes in the fall for the Gryphons, according to head coach Dave Leger, to be competitive in this sport, athletes train consistently throughout the year which requires a fair amount of support.
“We have realized that, in our current sport model, we don’t have a high level of support, so we do have to fundraise to meet the operational needs of our team,” added Leger. “The athletics department has always been very forthright about that. When I rowed in 1978, it wasn’t much different.”
In order to train all year round, the team does get some support from the University in that they have access to all the facilities as well as some funding.
The team raised a total of $1696.97 in online donations and another $340.25 from the bake sale held at the event. The money raised from the bake sale went directly to Big Brothers Big Sisters Guelph at the annual Bowl for Kids’ Sake event, while the donations will go towards team operations.
Photo by Dana Bellamy/The Ontarion