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Oak Bay High student to compete in CSSRA Championship Regatta

Graham Stewart heads to Ontario for international competition in June
web1_OBRowersMay1717

For Graham Stewart, it all began in Grade 9 when he picked up rowing “on a whim.”

“At the time, our team wasn’t very big,” he said. “It was only a month (per year), and there wasn’t a lot of pressure to perform well.”

Graham said his early rowing days were casual and noncompetitive. His perspective on rowing began to change through high school.

“I felt like it was worth continuing, so in grade ten I joined the club I’m in now.” He belongs to the Gorge Narrows Rowing Club in downtown Victoria. Several years ago, the club had only ten members and was substantially smaller and less competitive than Victoria City Rowing Club at Elk Lake.

Today, the club sits at around thirty members. “We’re sizeable. We’re starting to find a lot more success. We have a new coach Scott Schwinkels who also coaches the UVic men’s team. I think a lot of our success comes from him,” Graham said. The Gorge Narrows Rowing Club recently won several regattas and participated in the Brentwood International Regatta, which involved the team competing alongside rowers from across Canada, the United States, and beyond. Graham’s team earned several podium finishes in the event.

In early June, Graham heads to Ontario to compete in the seventy-second annual CSSRA (Canadian Secondary School Rowing Association) Championship Regatta. He will not participate with the Gorge Narrows club, as the competition includes students representing their schools rather than local teams. He says this will make the competition somewhat “tricky,” as he rows in a double with a Gorge Narrows club member but will row single this time. Despite this, he looks forward to the significant international event.

“(Rowing) is definitely pretty hard, but there’s a lot to like,” Graham said. “It’s easy to go to practice knowing I’m going to be surrounded by a bunch of friends. We’re all going through the same stuff. We’re a close-knit team.”

editor@oakbaynews.com