Intercollegiate Rowing Association
Encyclopedia
The Intercollegiate Rowing Association runs the IRA Championship Regatta, which is considered to be the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 collegiate
College athletics
College athletics refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education . In the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system. The first tier includes the sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies...

 national championship
Championship
Championship is a term used in sport to refer to various forms of competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.- Title match system :...

 of rowing
College rowing (United States)
Rowing is one of the oldest intercollegiate sports in the United States. However, rowers comprise only 2.2% of total college athletes. This may be in part because of the status of rowing as an amateur sport and because not all universities have access to suitable bodies of water. In the 2002-03...

. Since 1995, it has been held on the Cooper River
Cooper River (New Jersey)
The Cooper River is a tributary of the Delaware River in southwestern New Jersey in the United States.The confluence of the Cooper River with the Delaware River is in Camden...

 in Pennsauken
Pennsauken
Pennsauken may refer to the following in New Jersey:Communities:* Pennsauken Township, New Jersey, in Camden CountySchools:* Pennsauken High School* Pennsauken Public Schools* Pennsauken Technical High SchoolStreams:...

, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, and includes both men's and women's (lightweight) events for sweep boats
Racing shell
In watercraft, a racing shell is an extremely narrow, and often disproportionately long, rowing boat specifically designed for racing or exercise. It is outfitted with long oars, outriggers to hold the oarlocks away from the boat, and sliding seats...

 of all sizes. Today, Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

, Navy
United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...

, and Syracuse
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

 are members of the association. Each year these five schools choose who to invite to the regatta
Regatta
A regatta is a series of boat races. The term typically describes racing events of rowed or sailed water craft, although some powerboat race series are also called regattas...

 and are responsible for its organization along with the ECAC
Eastern College Athletic Conference
The Eastern College Athletic Conference is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 21 sports . It has 317 member institutions in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III, ranging in location from Maine to North Carolina and west to Illinois...

. The IRA is the oldest college rowing championship in the United States.

History

Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 and Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 were the organizing stewards of the IRA Regatta first held on the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

 at Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie (city), New York
Poughkeepsie is a city in the state of New York, United States, which serves as the county seat of Dutchess County. Poughkeepsie is located in the Hudson River Valley midway between New York City and Albany...

, on June 24, 1895. The format through 1967 with the exception of 1964 was to line all the entries in the race onto stake-boats and fire a shotgun for the start. In the last race of this format in 1967 on Onondaga Lake
Onondaga Lake
Onondaga Lake is a lake in Central New York located northwest of Syracuse, New York. The southeastern end of the lake and the southwestern shore abut industrial areas and expressways; the northeastern shore and northwestern end border a series of parks and museums. Although it is near the Finger...

, sixteen varsity crews waited for the gun to begin their three mile race — winner take all. The format was changed in the Olympic year, 1968, to heats and finals over a 2000 meter, six-lane course. This heat-rep
Repechage
Repechage is a practice amongst ladder competitions that allows participants that failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round.- Types of repechage :...

-final, six-lane, 2000 meter format continues today.

Since the 1920s, when the West Coast crews — notably California and Washington — began to attend and regularly win, most crews considered the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship (known as the IRA) to be a de facto national championship. Two important crews, Harvard and Yale, however, did not participate in the heavyweight divisions of the event. (After losing to Cornell in 1897, Harvard and Yale chose to avoid the IRA, so as not to diminish the Harvard-Yale Regatta
Harvard-Yale Regatta
The Harvard-Yale Boat Race or Harvard–Yale Regatta is an annual rowing race between Yale University and Harvard University. First contested in 1852, annually since 1859 except during major wars fought by the United States, The Race is America's oldest collegiate athletic competition, predating The...

. It soon became part of each school's tradition not to go). And beginning in 1973, Washington decided to skip the IRA because of change in schedule conflicted with its finals. Washington, however, returned to the regatta in 1995. In 2003, after an absence of over one hundred years, Harvard and Yale decided to participate. The Harvard Freshman eight competed at the 1970 IRA Regatta, finishing seventh in the Freshman event.

Champions

For collegiate rowing champions (U.S.), see: Intercollegiate sports team champions#Rowing
For IRA "men's varsity heavyweight eights" champions (1898–present), see: Intercollegiate sports team champions#Men's Varsity Heavyweight Eights
For IRA "men's varsity lightweight eights" champions (1990–present), see: Intercollegiate sports team champions#Men's Varsity Lightweight Eights
For IRA "men's overall points" champions (1952–present), see: Intercollegiate sports team champions#Men's Overall Points
For IRA "women's varsity lightweight eights" champions (1997–present), see: Intercollegiate sports team champions#Women's Varsity Lightweight Eights

External links

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