Cavallo Qualifies for Costal Rowing Championships

GRP Athlete Christine Cavallo got a call last week with a strange request: an open seat to race in a brand new discipline of rowing: you in?

Within 5 days Cavallo got herself from Craftsbury to Sarasota, FL and into an open-ocean coastal rowing boat for the first time ever on Friday, with a time trial and final scheduled for Saturday.

The racing format is as follows: one athlete covers a variable sprint down to the beach while the rest board as quickly as possible. The boat then slaloms out over 250 meters, executes a 180° turn, and sprints back to shore. Then the bowman aims to hit the ground running and sprints back to the starting position.

Cavallo’s composite lineup posted a time 8 seconds slower coming out of the time trial, but rallied to win the final! The lineup, having met just 24 hours prior, is now the US entry for the Mixed 4x with coxswain that races in Portugal this September.