Money-lined sprint for Crow and Borch

This makes it two years in a row for both Crow and Borch. Crow, the reigning World Champion in the women’s single sculls, held off Canada’s top single sculler and indoor rowing champion, Carling Zeeman.  Top single sculler from the United States, Genevra Stone was third with Olympic Champion Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic in fourth. All four of these scullers raced in the final of the women’s single at this year’s World Rowing Championships. Knapkova was second, Stone fourth and Zeeman sixth.

The 2013 World Champion from the men’s double sculls, Borch beat Mahe Drysdale to claim the top prize. Olympic Champion Drysdale came to Philadelphia after winning Boston’s Head of the Charles race a week prior. Drysdale also finished second in 2014 and he told Rowing New Zealand, “Last year I really closed up on Kjetil in the last 200 metres but this year I went out fast and didn’t have as much left at the end. It’s a tricky distance as we never race it.”

World Champion Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic was one second behind Drysdale in third with the top lightweight sculler for the United States, Andrew Campbell finishing in fourth.

All four scullers in both the women’s and men’s race reaped the benefit of prize money with second place earning US$5000, third winning US$2500 and fourth receiving US$1000.

Held during the popular Head of the Schuylkill Regatta in front of a large crowd estimated at about 30,000 people, this is the third running of the ‘modern day’ Gold Cup. The original version began in 1920 with the 1920 Olympic Champion, John B Kelly Sr. winning. The race continued through to the early 1960s when the event stopped and the Cup was lost. In 2011 the Cup was rediscovered and the race reinstated with the addition of a women’s race.

Racing in the Gold Cup is by invitation and Elle Carolan of the Gold Challenge Cup Foundation says a lot of thought goes into the process. “The defending Gold Cup Champions are always invited to defend the Cup, but we also spend time discussing past performance, and debating future performance. We not only want to include the current stars (such as Kim Crow) but we want them to go up against the future stars of the sport (Carling Zeeman),” says Carolan. “We have felt it is important, given the Cup’s strong history, to include competitive US athletes in the races.”

As well as racing, the invited athletes were introduced to a slice of Philadelphia life including an Eagles vs Giants football game and a run up the stairs made famous by the Rocky movie. Borch, Stone, Crow and Drysdale also spoke to school students from a number of Philadelphia primary and high schools.

“We believe the experience in Philadelphia will leave a lasting impression on the athletes, and that it will further inspire them in their efforts towards Rio in 2016, and also how to further serve as an ambassador to the sport of rowing. They certainly provided us with exciting racing and showing their technical prowess in the shorter sprinting length,” says Carolan.