Although it is the off season for college athletes, Bates rowers are remaining active on the waters while winning international and national medals.

Dual-citizen Andrew Brynes '05 (Ithaca, N.Y.), racing for Canada's men's eight, earned a bronze medal at the Under-23 World Championships in Amsterdam, while at the USRowing National Championship Regatta in Indianapolis, Ind., Elizabeth Diamond '04 (Steamboat Springs, Colo.) won two silver medals and Christian Ford '08 (Harvard, Mass.) won a silver.

At the U23 championships, a relatively slow first half over the 2,000-meter course left Byrnes' crew fifth with 500 meters remaining. With strategic pushes at the 1,500-meter and 1,750-meter marks, Byrnes' boat rallied past the Germans and Czechs to claim a bronze. The event was won by Romania with Italy placing second in a record field of 15 entries.

"We knew going into the final that we had the strongest second 1,000 of all six crews," said Byrnes. "Our focus was to hold as high a position as possible for the first half the race, make a concentrated move in the second half, and then sprint for the line early as we had done in the semifinals."

With 500 meters left, he added, "we knew it was 'go' time. Everyone in the boat gave it their all and we managed to have the fastest last 500 of any crew out there." Canada advanced to the finals by virtue of a second-place finish to Romania in the semifinals, ahead of Ukraine, France, Belarus and Poland. Results are at www.wu23.org.  

Diamond and Ford race for the Riverside Boat Club of Boston. Diamond, who received the first Senior Citation in rowing at Bates, won her medals with the senior women's eight-plus and intermediate women's four-plus. Ford earned his as coxswain of the women’s intermediate four-plus. He also coxed the Riverside intermediate women's eight-plus to a fourth-place finish. 

Full results for the July 20-25 USRowing Championship Regatta are at www.racetrak.com/usrowing/nationals/2005/ .