CTC Hits the Water

One

Sportsmanship

Embraces the ideals of Sportsmanship and all the necessary components of athletic activity.

Two

Expanding Horizons

Expands Horizons using a personal mentoring system and inspires all participants to achieve academically and athletically.

Three

Responsibility

Encourages Community Responsibility by developing and using each member’s leadership skills.

CTC Hits the Water -

Chicago Training Center boats have already competed in three regattas and results are the best they have ever been for the fall! Our first race of the season saw us host a home regatta on the Chicago River with competition from St. Ignatius High School and Crystal Lake Rowing Club. Nineteen boats competed from all squads and this gave the new CTC novices a chance to test themselves in a competitive environment for the first time.

CTC's top boy's quad was the third fastest boat on the water (just behind the Ignatius men's coxed 8 and coxed 4) but it was the girls that stole the show. The CTC girls posted the fastest time for all girl entries by 45 seconds! All rowers raced at least once and some three times! CTC plans to make this an annual event on the River for local crews that want to throw down on the Chicago industrial course!

Following the excitement on the home course we faced two-days of competition a week later at the Quad Cities Challenge and Head of the Rock Regatta (Oct 8th and 9th respectfully). This double race weekend meant that we were away from home for two nights and the kids were jumping with excitement to not only leave Chicago but also race against unknown competition.

The Quad Cities Challenge (Moline, Illinois) had the kids compete on the Mississippi River (a first) and take on challenges from Culver Military Academy, Quad Cities, and other local crews. Our men's quad finished second in a close fought race (15 sec margin) but it was the girls again that stole the show with a 1st place finish among high school teams (they finished second to a University in the Womaen's Open Quad event). Special mention should go to our 4th Girls Quad who had a rather exciting and damaging encounter with a bridge. Needless to say the boat did not come away unscathed but it can be repaired. We will now focus on learning how to steer away from immovable objects!

Following our exciting day in Moline we headed north to Rockford for a regatta of significantly larger size. Given that CTC was down two quads (one was damaged in transport - all fixable) we had to re-shuffle some crews. Thanks to the good nature of the crew members, everything worked out and almost everyone got to race (apologies to Sergio for being the odd one out). Both our top men's and women's quad finished 3rd - but in a time that was highly competitive with the top end of the field. We can honestly say that we are now performing against top crews and because of this the competitive fires have lit up the squad from within.

The post race count from the regatta weekend was 32 total medals, multiple races competed, and two boats damaged. All-in-all, a rather successful, exciting, and chaotic few days. The kids now realize what we as coaches have always preached - rowing is best when you are competing, and even better when you are able to claim a victory!

We will now focus our efforts on our final regatta - the Head of the Eagle in Indianapolis Indiana (Oct 29th). We hope that we are able to go up against teams that have recently piped us to the post (Culver, Quad Cities, and Minnesota Boat Club) and others that we have yet to see. We are more than ready to test ourselves and this regatta will be our final opportunity before we hit Gage Park and settle in to Winter Training.