Royal Canadian Henley Celebrates 100 Years at St. Catharines

St Catherines grandstand
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From its roots in England, the Royal Canadian Henley began in Toronto, Canada 121 years ago. One hundred years ago the event became a permanent fixture in St. Catharines, Ontario and this week regatta marks its anniversary.

Designed mainly for club level rowing, Canada’s Henley is no local regatta. Two and a half thousand competitors will line up over the next six days. This makes it one of the biggest rowing events in North America with the organisers facing 413 starts coming down the 2000 metre course every seven minutes.

Entries row under their club names and the list of 122 clubs include Egypt’s American University in Cairo, Club de Regattas Lima from Peru and Germany’s RCH Dortmund.

When the race first moved to St. Catharines the course was a one mile, 550 yards distance with a buoy turn at half way. This distance emulated the English Henley and witnessed the days of professional racing. At the close of the 1800s, one of the top professional single scullers in the world, Canadian Ned Hanlan advocated the course’s quality.

Over the 100 year history the course has seen many improvements including in 1964 the distance moving to the 2000-metre distance. Canal dredging has made for consistency in depth and a grandstand renovated to accommodate World Championship standards. In 1999 St. Catharines hosted the World Champs which doubled as the 2000 Olympic qualifying regatta and saw a number of world record times being set.

Women’s rowing appeared as a demonstration event for the first time in 1947 complete with a doctor following in a chase boat (to monitor physical stress). But it was not until 1972 that women’s races were added permanently over a 1000 metre distance. Today more than half of the entries are women and after 1985 the race changed to the full 2000 metres.

The Canadian Henley is unique in that for each of the 82 events, plus the master’s programme on the final day, only the first place is honoured with a medal. This makes the winning even more important and leads to some exciting finals.

Find out more on the official web site: http://www.henleyregatta.ca/default.htm