Brock Rowers representing Canada at World University Rowing Championships

ST. CATHARINES, Ont. - Brock University rowing will once again make their presence on the international scene with five rowers and head coach Peter Somerwil representing Canada at the upcoming 2010 World University Rowing Championships in Hungary.

“This is a great opportunity for our student-athletes to compete against some of the best university rowers in the world said head coach Peter Somerwil. “This can be a key development step in their rowing careers as they strive towards the Canadian senior national team in the future.”

The four Brock men’s rowers representing Canada are Pat O’Connor (Toronto, Ont.) and Keegan Drummond (Quispamsis, NB) in the men’s heavy four and Travis King (Grimsby, Ont.) and Jake Cushnie (Welland, Ont.) in the men’s lightweight double. The lone Brock women’s rower is former Badger standout Larissa Lagzdins (Grimsby, Ont.) who is the stroke for the women’s heavy four crew.

It's a great honour and privilege to be able to represent both my school and country at the international level,” said Brock senior captain Pat O’Connor. “I have always trained and pushed myself so that I can represent Brock rowing at the highest level possible. Now I have the opportunity to do this and represent Canada at the same time. I'm really excited to have this opportunity in my career.”

“As a crew we hope to make the A Final and win a medal but in racing anything can happen,” explained O’Connor. “We just hope that we have trained hard enough and mentally prepared ourselves well enough to put us in that position. Our strategy will be to just keep a level head and focus on our own boat. Competing at such a high level against top crews from around the world it will be easy to loose focus. We just need to keep focused on ourselves to achieve our overall goal.”

The Canadian crews have worked out in Welland this past week and left Friday for the worlds. The 2010 FISU World University Rowing Championships takes place in Szeged, Hungary from August 13th to 15th.