{"id":223522,"date":"2026-03-17T09:59:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/223522\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T09:59:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:59:29","slug":"thousands-expected-for-san-diego-crew-classic-at-crown-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/223522\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands expected for San Diego Crew Classic at Crown Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN DIEGO \u2013 Over the past five-plus decades, the San Diego Crew Classic<\/a> has grown to become one of the more anticipated and highly regarded rowing regattas in the U.S.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s iteration, which takes place at Mission Bay from March 27-29, is expected to draw tens of thousands of spectators who will watch more than 4,000 athletes competing in 140 races along Crown Point Shores.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can row year-round here, whereas on the East Coast, you can\u2019t,\u201d Crew Classic executive director Bobbie Smith<\/a> said when explaining the event\u2019s popularity and growth. \u201cAnd the appeal of that for our regatta is that a lot of East Coast teams fly out (to compete).\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, there are 445 entries and 100 clubs, Smith confirmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd those entries, you figure there are nine people on each of those boats, with support teams, as well \u2014 coaches and trainers and things like that,\u201d she explained. \u201cAlong the competitive side, what\u2019s that \u2014 4,005 competitors. Then you figure every one of those boats has at least one coach, and then oftentimes they have additional support staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy guess is it\u2019s probably like 4,600 to 4,700 people in that (competitors) category,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Although the event\u2019s now in its 53rd year, it\u2019s still evolving, and two new components are making their debut in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re introducing the (beach) sprints this year for the first time,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThis year is more of an exhibition, where we\u2019re going to have a couple of races, we\u2019re going to have a workshop to teach people how it works, because it is actually a whole new type of rowing, it\u2019s a racing that most people aren\u2019t familiar with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re having Marc Oria \u2014 he is the national team coach for beach sprints \u2014 and he\u2019s actually flying in to give the workshop on it and teach people how to do it, and we\u2019re having some beach sprints national team people come in. That\u2019ll be on Friday. We\u2019ll do the workshop on Friday morning, and in the afternoon we\u2019ll have some of the national teamers do an exhibition race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNext year, we\u2019ll be adding beach sprints as an additional day of racing,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019ll be Thursday and Friday next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing this year is we have an open gender race, it\u2019s a quad (featuring four rowers competing using two oars), and it\u2019s just an opportunity for anyone to race that maybe doesn\u2019t fall into the men\u2019s and women\u2019s category,\u201d Smith explained. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to have five entries in that, so we\u2019re very excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of those events, there\u2019s a lot of people coming for them,\u201d she added, \u201cand we\u2019re excited that we can support them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parking near the venue gates is first-come, first-served. No cars or trucks will be allowed inside the event. Free parking is available at Ski Beach, just south of Crown Point, with free shuttle transportation to and from the regatta venue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2013 Over the past five-plus decades, the San Diego Crew Classic has grown to become one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[101910,101911,101912,74,101913,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-223522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-competitive-rowing","9":"tag-crown-point","10":"tag-rowing","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-crew-classic","13":"tag-san-diego-headlines","14":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}