Four members of Santa Barbara’s Mission Rowing Club have earned spots on the U.S. rowing team for the Under-23 World Rowing Championships in the Czech Republic next month.
Ruthie Lacy, Grace Beery, Grace D’Souza and Isabella Begley will compete in the lightweight women’s quadruple sculls at the championship regatta in the city of Racice. They won at the U.S. Under-23 Trials in Sarasota, Fla., two weeks ago.
Lacy attends Oklahoma City University, Beery goes to Boston University, D’Souza is at Wisconsin-Madison and Begley attends Syracuse.
“While we know we have more to develop and execute in the coming weeks, we are excited and thrilled to be back on the race course,” said Begley, who came to Santa Barbara to train with coach Conal Groom and the Mission team on Lake Cachuma. Groom is a 2000 U.S. Olympian.
“Representing the USA and knowing we have more speed to find is exciting and motivating,” Begley added. “We are beyond thrilled to be able to represent our country and be training in such an amazing venue.”
The foursome is part of 22 U.S. rowing crews that will be competing in the five-day competition that draws nearly 1,000 rowers and serves as a stepping stone to future Olympic and senior national team berths.
Groom said he is impressed with how his rowers pulled together during the COVID-19 pandemic and qualified for the U23 Worlds.
“Obviously, we would love to be on the podium, but no matter what happens it’s a credit to these women’s character that they’ve been able to sustain their momentum during COVID and perform at such a high level in a year in which competition largely ground to a halt,” he said.
“In a normal year, we would race up and down the West Coast in the fall, train in the winter and then spend the spring racing at national team identifiers and trials — and seeking out the best competition we could find. But this year, unfortunately, all of that was off the table.”
Instead, the quad members and other high-performance athletes, such as 16-year-old Kat Lord Krause, put in hours of hard training at Lake Cachuma.
“We were still able to keep up a rigorous training schedule, practicing twice a day, six days a week and racing each other in lieu of other teams,” Groom said.
Krause, whose family moved to Santa Ynez from Seattle, is vying for a spot on the U.S. Junior Natonal Team at a selection camp in Chula Vista.
The quad team members have some impressive credentials.
Lacy owns two world-record rowing ergometer (erg) times among women’s U19 lightweights.
D’Souza holds the Wisconsin freshman and all-time 2k record on the erg for Wisconsin women’s lightweights. She is the captain of the Wisconsin women’s lightweight rowing team.
Beery is a two-time Intecollegiate Rowing Association champion in lightweight double sculls (2019, 2021).
Begley won a gold medal at the Youth Nationals in the women’s lightweight 4+.
Groom and his partner, Carol Nagy, started Mission Rowing in late 2019 after arriving from Seattle. Today, Mission is the only community rowing program in the area.
“Conal doesn’t give up on his kids,” said Nagy, Mission’s executive director. “He is immensely committed to their success, and whether it’s middle schoolers or the high school racing team or his elite, high-performance athletes who come from around the country to train with him here in Santa Barbara, Conal invests a great deal of thought and care into each athlete’s development.”
Groom noted that there is “a ton of scholarship money” in rowing. He said three of the four women headed to the U23 World Championships are going to college on either full or partial scholarships.
“We’re delighted to be able to introduce more kids and adults to this sport in the months and years ahead,” he said.
The Mission rowers competing at the U23 World Championships in Czech Republic started a GoFundMe page to help them cover their expenses in their quest for gold.