BC Summer Games and Cascadia Recap

With both Cascadia and BC Summer Games occurring this past weekend (July 18-21), Burnaby Lake was busy with both masters and junior rowers along the one kilometer race course.

The 2024 BC Summer Games hosted by Maple Ridge this year held Rowing at Burnaby Lake from Thursday to Sunday. Time trials were run on the Thursday, heat racing on Friday, and finals on Saturday and Sunday. The Sunday big boat races truly showed the sportsmanship and adaptability from these young rowers as they raced in quads without a lot of opportunities to practice together.

From their home clubs, these athletes tirelessly trained to represent their zone and fight for a chance to medal at this prestigious regatta.  With the 2024 Paris Olympics looming around the corner, these athletes looked to some of our very own BC Rowers representing Canada at the Games for inspiration through their training. Regardless of these athletes placing or times, they deserve commendation for being selected for the BC Summer games as well as the effort that went into their performances this past weekend.

Every zone that participated in rowing landed on the podium at least once.

• Zone 1 – three medals
• Zone 2 – five medals
• Zone 3 – four medals
• Zone 5 – one medal
• Zone 6 – eleven medals

Full results for BC Summer Games can be found on the BC Games website.

The Cascadia Masters Regatta had performances from big and small boats from clubs across North America with a composite crew even representing Hong Kong. These Masters rowers showed their true merit racing in the heat of July 19-21. Full results for Cascadia Masters can be found here.

One of the many highlights for this weekend was the attendance of rower Theresa Porter, racing in honour of her first coach Chris Gulka who tragically passed away in May with two other young men during a catastrophic avalanche. Gulka rowed with the University of Victoria during his time there and coached at the Fort Langley Community Rowing Club for the years after. Family and Friends are collecting donations for Squamish SAR for their efforts through a GoFundMe.

A big thank you to all of the volunteers for both Cascadia and BC Summer games that signed up for volunteer shifts in advance and helped, as well as the athletes and coaches that jumped into roles at a moments notice to help. Your efforts are what made this Regatta happen. Another huge thank you to the umpires and timing team that managed the events as both regattas wouldn’t have been possible without you all.