S5E40: HOCR 2024 - Coastal Rowing Champs Bak, Rogers & Choi
Bak, Choi, Rogers - Transcript 2023 Won COPA America Mixed 4x2022 Bronze at Beach Sprint Worlds for Mixed 4x 2021 Tokyo Paralympic PR3 Mixed 4+ AlternateChris Bak 2021 Portugal-1x 8th BS2022 wales 1x gold 4x bronze BS2023 Barletta- 1x 8th BS 1x silver ENDURO 2x gold ENDURO2024 Genoa- 1x gold Kory Rogers 4x coastal national team 2x world champion, youngest in 2023 senior level worlds 1x bronze medalist Bali continental qualifier USOPC (Olympic committee event)Host, Napoleon Griffin: Alright, welcome back! We're at the Head of the Charles Regatta, 2024, day three. I'm pleased to have my last guests with me. I'd like them to introduce themselves, going from left to right. "Hey guys, my name is Kory Rogers.""I'm Chris Bak, nice to meet you.""And I'm Peter Choi, nice to meet you."Alright, thank you all. So, we're here at a rowing event on the water, but you guys aren't doing what most people think of when they think of rowing. What do you do? "We all do coastal rowing. Peter's our coxswain." For those who don't know what coastal rowing is, can you explain it? "Coastal rowing is a really dynamic side of the sport. In traditional flat water rowing, you see more 2k or 5k races, like here at the Head of the Charles. For coastal, we do have 4k and 6k racing, which is on the endurance side. But we also have a cool type of racing called beach sprints, which is now in the 2028 Olympics. It's a 500-meter format with some slalom. It's a much shorter, more dynamic race out on the open ocean." Now, having lived in Puerto Rico, I know coastal rowing takes place in the ocean, and I'm not a fan of that! Flipping is not an option, considering you have things waiting for you in the water. You could become a snack if you don't do well! So, talk about how the race starts before you actually get in the boat. For those who are not aware of coastal rowing, they might think you have stake boats like you would in a regular flat water race, but that's not the case. So how is it set up? Types of Coastal Rowing "Good question. There are actually two different types of coastal rowing. The Olympic discipline for LA that Chris mentioned is called beach sprints. If you're in a smaller boat, a single or a double, one of the athletes starts at the archway at the starting line. There's a rope on the sand, and when the buzzer goes off, you sprint anywhere from 50 to 80 meters. In the case of a quad, it'd be the coxswain who sprints. Then you have to jump into the boat and slalom around three buoys and then make your way back. The bow person jumps out and then has to go back to the start line and hit a big red button. It's very action-packed. I like to say it's kind of like the BMX to mountain biking, or the velodrome to rough and tumble cycling. For the Coastal World Championships, the long-distance event, there are variations, but the one I've seen the most is usually a cluster of people kind of waiting, and there's three balls that designate one-minute starting times. So three balls means three minutes. One drops, the second one drops, the last one drops, and then the buzzer goes, and then there really are no lanes. It's like head racing without the stagger. So 20 to 40 boats all kind of converge towards that first buoy. There's a lot of contact." "When people say rowing's not a contact sport, they're not thinking about coastal rowing!" That's interesting. So, I would presume, coming from the world of track and field, you're not going to put your slowest runner at the bow of your boat. If you have a tight race, and your bow person can outrun the other bow person, you can move from bronze to gold, out of medal contention to being a gold medalist, just based on the run. So do you ever actually have races to figure out who's the fastest? So, what happened in 2023? Bak: "Oh yeah, yeah. In the endurance side... I'll let Kory talk about what happened in 2023." "Chris and I did the double for the endurance race. We surprised ourselves leading the race for th
