All-new USRowing Awards a success

Organised by USRowing and the National Rowing Foundation, the Golden Oars Awards Dinner was held at the New York Athletic Club with more than 350 guests in attendance. Guests included a who’s who of United States rowing. The World Champion women’s eight and women’s four were there along with the 2011 world silver medal women’s quadruple sculls.

FISA’s vice-president and Olympian Anita L. DeFrantz flew in from Los Angeles to present the award in her name, the Anita DeFrantz Award for advancing diversity in rowing. The first ever recipients of this award was Row New York. Row New York aims to make rowing accessible to youth from inner-city New York.

It was also the first year for the “Fan’s Choice” Awards which recognised collegiate, junior, masters and national team rower of the year as well as collegiate coach and masters coach of the year. The national team rower of the year went to women’s eight coxswain Mary Whipple. Whipple has a nearly 10-year streak of international success and she currently sits at number two on the World Rowing Top 10 Female Rowers for 2011. Whipple, however, only just won the award over young up-and-coming single sculler, Andrew Campbell. The 19-year-old finished third at this year’s World Rowing Under 23 Championships in the lightweight men’s single and then finished fourth at the senior World Rowing Championships.

The awards list included the Male Athlete of the Year (Charlie Cole) and Female Athlete of the Year (Julie Nichols) and Man of the Year (Andrew Campbell) Awards. There were also awards for services to rowing.

Rowing celebrities, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss flew in from their training base in San Diego to attend the awards which will be an annual event.

For a full list of award winners, click here.