Members of the Georgia Tech Kayak club won the national championship in Chula Vista Calif. Georgia Tech Club Teams Rise to the Top Maybe it's something in the Chattahoochee River water. Georgia Tech's sprint kayaking and crew club teams use the "Hooch" for practice and both prevailed in national competitions in June. The Georgia Tech Canoe and Kayak Club traveled to Chula Vista, Calif., and won the inaugural National Collegiate Sprint Kayaking Championship at the U.S. Olympic Training Center, defeating second-place University of Georgia and third-place Stanford. The Georgia Tech crew team swept by some Ivy League stalwarts to finish fourth in national competition. The Tech Canoe and Kayak Club, chartered in January, was participating in its first national competition. Sprint kayaking is different from the more familiar white-water kayaking. Sprint paddling involves racing long or short distances in longer kayaks designed for speed. "We're separate from rowing or crew because it is an Olympic discipline," club vice president Ty Hagler said. "It looks similar to crew in that it's racing from point A to point B, but rowers face backward and rely on a coxswain to steer them, while sprint kayakers face forward and steer themselves. Also, kayakers use double-bladed paddles that are separate from the boat while rowers use single-bladed oars that are attached to the boat." The Georgia Tech crew team was founded in 1986 and is Tech's largest club sport with 65 rowers and 15 boats. They are coached by former Olympic rower Rob Canavan. The Jackets qualified for the national finals in May by finishing second in the Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia, the largest collegiate regatta in the world. The Tech team then competed in its first Intercollegiate Rowing Association national finals held on the Cooper River in Pennsauken, N.J. The Yellow Jackets knocked out Ivy League perennial stalwarts Brown, Pennsylvania and Yale in the varsity fours with coxswain heat races and finished fourth in the finals against California, Princeton, Minnesota, Cornell and Wisconsin. "Georgia Tech was the only club competing in the IRA that didn't have 'super club' status," Dan Hazlett, director of intramurals and sports clubs, said. "Wisconsin, for instance, is a 'super club' because they have been around for a very long time and have a very strong school and alumni backing. They might as well be considered a varsity sport. The NCAA doesn't have anything really to do with rowing so the winners of the IRA are considered the fastest boats in college that year. " back to index