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For a number of years now my grandson Josh has been an avid rower with the St. Louis Rowing Club. When the family would come up for Christmas vacation, he would bring his ERG machine with him so he didn\u2019t miss a day of workout. This summer, 2022, his hard work began to pay off: he was invited to attend the US Rowing under 19 National Team Selection Camp in Chula Vista, CA. In early July he texted me that he had qualified for the national team in the U19 four man boat!! This meant that he would be flying to Varese, Italy with the team to represent the USA in the World Rowing Regatta from July 27-31, 2022. Of course I quickly decided to join Eric, Jodi and grandson Michael to watch the regatta in Italy. It\u2019s not everyday that you get a chance to watch your grandson compete for the National team against many other countries. <\/p>\n
The venue for the regatta was in northern Italy, very close to the Swiss border. Since Europe was experiencing an historic heat wave this summer, we decided to hide out in the Swiss Alps until Josh\u2019s races began. So we spent 3 nights in a small historic town of Ernen on the Italian side of the Swiss Alps before moving to Varese. <\/p>\n
The venue for the regatta was on Lake Varese which is nestled against the Italian Alps. This year\u2019s regatta combined the under 23 and under 19 competitions. The U19 races were all held in the morning which was good because it was very hot the whole week. On several days the high temperatures were greater than 40 deg C, so well over 100 deg F. They adjusted some of the races to avoid the afternoon heat. One casualty was the opening ceremony, which we had planned to attend, until it was suddenly advanced a day so we actually missed it. Josh said that most teams didn\u2019t attend and the event was very anticlimactic. There were over 400 rowers from 29 countries competing. The U19 JM4- category that Josh competed in had 19 entrants, the most of all the categories.<\/p>\n
In their opening race, the USA finished third with only the top two teams advancing automatically to the semifinals. So they had to row in the repechage which turned out to be the most exciting race of the whole regatta. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n