Local athlete and Ketchum firefighter Tory Canfield and her BMA Cornell teammates rowed to victory in the 38th running of the San Diego Crew Classic April 2-3 on Mission Bay along the Cali-fornia coast.
Canfield and her fellow rowers compete for the BMA boat club, a group of Cornell University alumni rowers who assemble to row together only a day or two before a race. At San Diego they teamed up to win the April 3 Women's Open G Final and carried away the Carley Copley Cup.
BMA Cornell won the Women's Open G Final in 7:20.80, beating UCLA (7:24.69) and Lincoln Park (7:36.94) in the six-team division Sunday. In Saturday's competition, BMA Cornell (7:21.90) was a 7.15-second winner over Lincoln Park in the four-team Women's Open A.
Canfield is the boat's stroke, meaning that she is the stern-most rower and is responsible for set-ting the rate and the rhythm for the boat.
The winning BMA boat had eight women who live in different parts of the country. They trained individually on rowing machines, and generally, are moms with full-time jobs.
< BMA Cornell rowers besides Canfield included Chris Bassler, Sandy Dupcak, Andrea Thies, Jen Hathaway, Emily Mastrianni, Kim Martucci and Louisa Edgerly.
The San Diego Crew Classic is the largest regatta in the world held primarily for eight-oared rowing shells. There were 100 races involving over 3,000 athletes over two days.
USD Toreros in Crew Classic
Wood River High School graduate Hannah Ward, 20, of Hailey was a member of the University of San Diego women's rowing team that wrapped up competition in the San Diego Crew Classic on Sunday morning with three races on Mission Bay.
The USD Toreros placed third in the Women's Collegiate 4+ Petite Final, fourth in the Women's Collegiate Varsity Invitational Petite Final and then fourth again in the Women's Open G Final won by Canfield's BMA Cornell team.
Ward, a 6-0 junior, is a USD second-year varsity member in the port/starboard position. She has rowed all three years in college for USD, after earning four varsity letters in basketball and three letters in volleyball at Wood River High School. The daughter of Tom and Karol Ward never rowed before college.
