Alum Represents U.S. at World Rowing Under 23 Championships
Results & Profile Added

John Redos ’09 (Cornell University Class of 2013) earned a spot on the United States U-23 National Team and represented the USA at the World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Brest, Belarus, July 22-25. John’s boat finished in 12th place overall on July 25 in the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls competition. His crew finished sixth in the B final for the 12th overall finish. The crew clocked a 6:38.14 to finish 7.69 seconds off the pace. Denmark won the race in 6:30.45.

Earlier this summer (fresh off a great season at Cornell), John won the Freshman Lightweight 8 at the Eastern Sprints, and continued his on-water success at Mercer Lake, in Princeton, N.J., on June 25. Redos and three teammates from the Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia won the Men’s Lightweight 4x at the National Team qualifier in dominant fashion. John’s family and three of his Blair teachers were there to support him. Last summer he became the 2009 USCA K1 Touring Kayaking National Champion.

Brad Wilson wrote the following preview article about John and the Under 23 competition for The Express-Times’ July 22 edition:

Blair Academy graduate John Redos to compete in World Rowing Championships

One oar, good. Two oars, better.

That's the way John Redos figured this summer out -- and because he did, he's representing the United States at the World Under-23 Rowing Championships in Brest, Belarus, in the lightweight men's quadruple sculls event that starts today.

Redos, a 19-year-old resident of Upper Mount Bethel Township and graduate of Blair Academy, attends Cornell (he will be a sophomore in the fall) and competes in crew there -- as a "sweep" rower, i.e., with each athlete using just one oar.

But the path to the worlds went down a different and unfamiliar route for the Harmony Township native.

"I really wanted to try to make the national team this summer, so I had to weigh all the options," Redos wrote in an e-mail interview this week from Belarus. "The first option that I had in mind was to apply to the straight (i.e., sweep) four camp. This seemed like the best option to me because this is the only style of rowing that I had ever done. I never dreamed of sculling; it seemed like years of experience would be needed to perform at a national level."

But Redos' club coach, Scott Wisniewski of Philadelphia's Vesper Boat Club, thought differently.

"At one of my regattas in Princeton I bumped into Scott and he brought up trying to make the U.S. lightweight quad (sculls)," Redos wrote. "This seemed crazy to me, I had never sculled before."

But the more he thought about it, Redos came to believe he had a better chance of a full summer of rowing with the sculls.

"This ensured a summer of rowing," he wrote. "Things were looking promising for an invite to the (sweep) camp, but this did not guarantee anything past two weeks of summer rowing and making the four as a freshman seemed like a tough goal. If I were cut from the quad camp, I would be able to continue my summer season rowing out of Vesper, the location of the quad camp."

Updated 7/26/2010

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