Early Saturday morning, a magnitude-8.8 earthquake hit the coast of Chile, sending shock waves up the coast of North and South America, and tsunami warnings as far north as Alaska and as far west as Japan and Russia. Due to the high chance of strong waves streaking across the coast, the men’s and women’s crew San Diego city championships — which were scheduled to take place in Mission Bay — will be rescheduled later this week.
The UCSD men’s team has won the inaugural race of the season for the past five consecutive years, and — even with a young cast — was banking on winning it this year too.
“For the past three of five years, this event has been canceled or rescheduled for some reason,” men’s head coach Zach Johnson said. “This wasn’t a big deal for some of the seniors on our team who have already seen a few city championships canceled.”
The league race was also to be the first of the season for the women, who were hoping to let their young team rack up some experience at the event.
Both the men’s and women’s teams are filled with young, inexperienced racers anxious to get the season started, but they may now have to squeeze two events into one week — depending on when the race will be made up.
“We’re not sure when this race is going to get rescheduled to,” Johnson said. “We have all of our weekends booked through the end of the season, so unless we want to schedule it midweek, we’ll have to schedule it for the end of the year.”
Typically, the season’s opening race does not happen until April, but because the Tritons will partake in the George Washington Invitational in early April, the coaches in San Diego scheduled the annual city championships for this weekend.
“We usually start the season later, but we had a great opportunity to go to a big meet,” Johnson said. “So the coaches in this area scheduled the meet now — but now, we’ll have to work something else, because we will see them next weekend at the UC San Diego Regatta race.”
In light of the cancellation, Johnson said the team was able to hold invaluable practice on rowing machines — something they had been unable to do yet this season.
Despite the delay, the Tritons will get back in the water next weekend at the UCSD Regatta race in Mission Bay.
Readers can contact Tyler Nelson at [email protected].
