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Registration is open for the 2025 Sin City Erg. Positioned as the global LGBTQ+ indoor rowing event, the competition will take place on Sunday, 19 January 2025 in Las Vegas.
The Sin City Erg will be one of 27 sports that are part of the 2025 Sin City Classic multi-sport tournament. The event is held every year over the United States Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Over 8,000 athletes are expected to attend, with some sports attracting hundreds if not thousands of participants. The largest sport participation totals from 2024:
Softball: 2,579
Kickball: 1,482
Women’s Softball: 814
Dodgeball: 761
Volleyball: 492
Soccer: 345
Flag Football: 302
Pickleball: 194
Tennis: 183
Sand Volleyball: 159
Cheerleading: 159
The Sin City Erg has been held three times since 2020. The big draw for indoor rowers is the selection of both individual and team events. Using the Concept2 Race software, teams can be created from the athletes sitting on the ergs, creating double, quadruple, and octuple races. The display shows the associated team boats racing down the course. Perfect for teams, clubs, and programmes to compete against each other. With 24 ergs, the opportunities to compete in a 2X, 4X, and 8X team event are endless!
If you only look at the Regatta Central counts for the 2024 Sin City Erg, you will be misled. There were 16 participants in 27 entries for 11 events. We had several walk-up registrations.
Bring your friends, partners, husbands, and wives. There are sports in which they can participate as well as all the fun of Vegas!
Early registration closes on 15 November and regular registration opens on 16 November. There are unlimited entries for one participant fee.
The Sin City Erg is presented by the Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation (GLRF). Login to the GLRF website and follow the event and indicate if you are going!
After years of promises and significant personal and developer delays, the Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation’s new online community platform is now live. The platform was officially opened for new registrations on 21 October 2024. What’s so different? Just about everything!
Probably the most important change is that V2.0 is responsive. What does that mean? For all you mobile users, you can browse and interact with the community with any mobile device, phone, or tablet, all day and all night. Just type in the GLRF url, glrf.info, into any browser on your mobile and you will see and use just about every feature available that you would find on a desktop or laptop.
Brand new to the V2.0 is Regattas+ The section allows any GLRF member to list any rowing-related regatta, ergatta, and camp/clinic. When we say any, we mean any: LGBTQ+-focused or not. If you have a favorite rowing regatta, you can list it, and once listed, GLRF members can follow the listing to see who is going, track comments, see any uploaded files, and share images. Every listing is designed to have an overview description (provided by a GLRF member) as well as links for the regatta website and registration. Even better, any GLRF member can edit the listing if the description or dates or url is incorrect. Best of all, there is a Member Going feature. Yes, you can click “I’m Going” and the rest of the community can see that!
Probably the most visited aspect of the community is the Gallery. Not only renamed, but completely redesigned, the Gallery removes endless layers of categories and subcategories and simply offers albums. GLRF members can create their own albums or add to existing with absolute ease. Since the gallery is an intrinsic part of the platform, GLRF members can find the gallery albums connected with the Community Calendar Events section and the Regattas+ section.
Another major remodel was the Countries section. Now found under Connections, the Members, section allows visitors to click on every country with a GLRF member and see member demographics by region and metroarea. We have added a country moderator feature that allows one or more country-specific GLRF members to send emails to all or portions of a given country.
The Initiatives section is brand new and supports the Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation’s goals to promote inclusion and acceptance, and to promote rowing in the broader LGBTQ+ community.
We encourage everyone to reconnect with our global rowing community. Log in and update your profile, or if you have heard about our community but kept putting it off, take the plunge and register – it’s free!
Oh, we almost forgot! Yes, there is an app! It’s a PWA or progressive web app. It looks and acts like a native application from the Google Store or the Apple Store but just works on any browser in a phone or tablet without all the updating and downloading. Need some help? Click over to our FAQ's.
The Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation marked 20 years of hosting a booth at the Head of the Charles Regatta and Festival on 18 – 20 Oct 2024. Situated along non-profit row, the booth is 100 meters before the finish line and affords some great viewing as crews battle to the finish.
The booth is located along a footpath fronting the Charles River. The booth location creates a bottleneck among the foot traffic flow that creates incredible visibility for approaching crews, coaches, visitors, and parents. Flowing from the finish line towards the main expo of the festival, everyone has to pass in front of the booth before they can peel off in one of several directions.
There were displays for the Rower’s Pledge, the GLRF global initiative to promote inclusion and acceptance in the broader rowing community, and for the 2025 Sin City Erg, in January 2025 in Las Vegas. Booth visitors enjoyed inspecting the various GLRF t-shirts, hoodies, and headwear.
In all the years of hosting a booth, this weekend seemed to be the best with only a touch of wind on Friday and sunny skies every day. Yes, it was jacket chilly in the morning but by Noon, all of us began shedding layers. At the booth we had GLRF members @DPH2002, @Bob715, and @Howie55.
Throughout the weekend, GLRF members stopped by to say hello. It was great catching up with @omac, @DESIGNINGJIM35, @rowrgrl, @OneChocolateRower, @chgorower, @jalfano, @philly_cox, @rasta,and several coaches and coxies whose userids we can’t recall. It was great catching up with allies John and Charlotte from Calm Waters Rowing, Chris from Rowing News, and Bobbie from the Crew Classic.
Do you have images you would like to share from the Head of the Charles? Create a new album or add to this one!
If you are new to the Sin City Erg, it is an indoor erg event that is part of the largest annual LGBTQ+ sporting event in the world, the Sin City Classic, that takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada United States. The event is held on the American holiday weekend called Martin Luther King (MLK).
In 2023, there will be 27 sports at the Classic. Each sport is organized and hosted by its own sporting body, be it a local sports team or a national sports organization. The sports are held in various places all over Las Vegas while the ‘festival’ if you want to call it that, is headquarterd at a block of three hotels on the Las Vegas Strip: Flamingo, LINQ, and Ballys (soon to be Horsehoe).
The Sin City Classic started as a softball tournament but now has grown to an umbrella event that hosts parties for the participants, offers charity events, and serves to bring all the sports together for the weekend.
The Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation (GLRF) was aware of the Sin City Classic but never really understood the scope of the multi-sport LGBTQ+ tournament. In early January 2019, after reading a press release about a new addition to the Sin City Classic sports lineup, e-gaming, we had one of those revelatory moments that this would be a perfect spot for an LGBTQ+ erg event. After attending the 2019 Sin City Classic and experiencing the parties and watching some of the sports, we knew this would be the ultimate and perfect setting for an LGBTQ+ erg event.
A central destination that is easy to reach for domestic and international air traffic.
An extremely lgbtq-friendly city.
An event that is held at the same time at the same location every year.
More than just an erg competition – a gathering of 8,000 sports-minded folk that offers something for everyone, including the husbands, wives, and friends that come along.
The perfect setting for a potential annual meeting of the Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation
The Sin City Erg offers a competitive selection of individual and team events and the idea of including team events was specifically targeted for inclusive rowing clubs and rowing studios as well as LGBTQ+ rowing clubs so that teams could compete together against other clubs. These team events are accomplished by using an existing feature in the Concept2 indoor race software.
Beyond the Sin City Erg, the Sin City Classic offers a weekend getaway that provides not only lots of parties but also the chance to see shows, dine at amazing restaurants, explore the nearby parks, hike in the nearby mountains, visit museums, and of course, shopping. Las Vegas is actually a very family friendly location and GLRF is very proud that the Sin City Erg is open to age 13+.
What is the tempo?
12 January 2023: Thursday is the Early Bird Party
13 January 2023: Friday has some sports already underway.
13 January 2023: Friday night is the Registration Party where all the sports host a table in a ginormous ballroom at the Flamingo Hotel and where many of the athletes come to pick up their registration envelopes provided by the individual sports. There are floor games, bars, and some delicious eye candy since the adult industry hosts some booths as well.
14 January 2023: Saturday is busy all over Las Vegas as the sports tournaments gets underway. The Sin City Erg setup starts at the Chuck Minker Sports Complex.
14 January 2023: Saturday night has another big party.
15 January 2023: Sunday more sports tournaments continue. The Sin City Erg event gets underway.
15 January 2023: Sunday night is the closing party.
13 - 15 January 2023: Alongside the Sin City Classic, the Hustlaball Las Vegas is also running at the same time.
Truly the Sin City Erg is perfectly positioned as the Global LGBTQ+ Indoor Rowing event. Registration is open at Regatta Central.
Fear simmers inside every LGBTQ person. Even as society is deemed to be ‘so accepting,’ every person who contemplates coming out today still trembles at the moment of revelation. In video clips in 2022, you can still see people (celebrities/athletes) break down in tears, displaying the raw feeling of shame and fear associated with coming out.
What are these fears?
Rejection by your teammates
Discrimination by your school, club, or coach
Retribution towards your place on the roster, to your gear, your house, your boat
Isolation from your ‘friends’
Judgement of you as a person because you are publicly part of the LGBTQ community
Abandonment by your family
Despisement of your orientation
Resentment towards a perceived desire for special treatment
Before LGBTQ acceptance in society became so commonplace, the LGBTQ community kept to themselves, seeking safety in the self-affirming gatherings spots of LGBTQ neighborhoods, clubs, and bars. When you looked a stranger or coworker in the eye, you didn’t know what they were thinking or how they might judge you if you shared your sexual orientation or it was discovered.
All of these issues are still a part of the LGBTQ rowing community. The shooting at the Club Q in Colorado Springs at midnight on November 19th reaches inside the soul of every LGBTQ person in the United States and draws out these fears.
Certainly, one or many could say this was the work and action of a lone, crazed person. This is not how you, your club, and your boat feel but the threat is still very real. This shooting puts us all on edge, forcing us to look around at strangers and teammates, wondering what they are thinking about you and the LGBTQ community.
There has been an outpouring of support on social media towards the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs. Those messages are comforting but don’t have a significant meaning to the rowers in your rowing program or your rowing club.
We call on every rowing club and rowing program at every level in the United States to show your support for your LGBTQ rowers with a meaningful gesture and message of acceptance. Display a rainbow flag, and it doesn’t matter if it has five or 8 colors. It’s the message, and along with it, send out an email to everyone in the club or program that declares the importance of the action: that LGBTQ rowers are welcome and accepted and respected. Just display the flag for three days or whatever time you feel is warranted but make sure the message goes out to the members. It sets an example for your club or program and it sends a profound message. We urge you to do this now, in the next few hours and days, while the hurt, the fear, and the doubt lingers within our minds.
If your club or program feels that displaying a flag falls flat, consider putting on a group row where everyone wears a type of rainbow clothing and when we say everyone, it will have a lot more meaning if the straight members do it than the LGBTQ rowers.
Finally, there could not be a more profound and lasting message of acceptance than if individual members of your rowing club or program sign the Rower’s Pledge. The pledge signatures are counted and displayed in total for a given rowing club or program. That has meaning.
If you haven't done so already, order a free Rower's Pledge sticker to display on your locker, your office door, or in your boathouse.
11 October is National Coming Out Day in the United States. It really should be International Coming Out Day since so many LGBTQ+ people worldwide face the same issues and, in some cases, with much worse reactions. For many people, coming out is the moment they make the public leap that has loomed in their conscience for years. It is a moment of celebration and cause for applause. It is also the final plunge into an abyss of fear and rejection that each person faces as they make their public announcement.
In the last few years, at the Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation regatta booths, visitors have wondered if our organization is still necessary? Do LGBTQ+ rowers really need a sense of community, a way to connect and find other, like-minded folks? Look at how open our society has become. These people say: “It’s not an issue anymore. At the secondary school level and at university, no one raises an eyebrow or passes judgement.”
But it is an issue. There are so many people in the rowing community who are burdened with conformance and acceptance. It isn’t just the teammates, although that is the most biting in a person’s mind. It is the worry about what the coach will think, how he/she/they will treat them in practice, in racing for seats, and how the coach may change their view of a person’s potential performance just based on someone who has “come out.” Then there are the parents. Then there are the teachers, the professors, and the hiring managers.
Do we need to treat this person with kid gloves because they came out? Do we have to watch everything we say? Do they need to be treated with deference? Will this person now be another political activist and everything we do on the team will be about equality and the words we use?
If there is one benefit of the Trump years, it has been the revelation that all these presumptive assumptions that the LGBTQ+ community is widely accepted is not true, and the simmering prejudices are revealed once again. To verify that declaration, we look to the news story in the New York Times, today, 11 October 2022, that relayed an audio recording of three Los Angeles City Council members using caustic racial slurs about other council members and constituents. In CALIFORNIA! In LA! Prejudice remains deeply rooted in our lives.
Every person’s conscience is filled with meeting expectations. Rowing is a small part. From there, the perception and expectation of what someone will become has been communicated by friends, family, and co-workers. It may be easy for Tabatha, Sam and Steven but that doesn’t mean it is easy for others.
Coming Out is not the grand ticker tape parade everyone makes it out to be. What follows after can be the most daunting.
Watch this Tiktok video by Barrett D. Carroll. It really says it all.
The Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation serves to inspirit those in the LGBTQ+ rowing community that we are there, in every aspect of rowing, and that the drive for acceptance and inclusion will continue.
USRowing is running a survey on retention and experiences/perspectives with regard to diversity and inclusion.
The survey is being run independently by Truclusion and all survey responses will be viewed by them and not USRowing. Truclusion will then provide a summary of the findings to USRowing with suggestions on how USRowing can become more diverse, inclusive, and sustainable.
You don't have to be a member of USRowing to take the survey!
Click this link to take the survey.
By Brian Todd and John Olbrys
The United States is undergoing a marked shift in its political ideology as individual states enact a number of laws affecting both the LGBTQ+ community and the broader population.
Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, more commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, took effect on 01 July 2022. At least a dozen states proposed similar legislation: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
An 08 July 2022 article in the New York Times examines the explosive rise in book bans across the United States, mostly targeted at LGBTQ+-themed books. The article cites challenges and protests in New Jersey, Arkansas, Illinois, California, Virginia, and North Carolina. At least five states have passed laws that support removing books (that have received complaints) from libraries.
Bans on transgender youth sports participation are codified in eighteen states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas , Utah, and West Virginia.
These issues point to a geographic landscape that is becoming less and less friendly towards the LGBTQ+ rowers, coaches, and their families who travel to the biggest rowing venues around the East Coast, South, and Mid-West of the United States.
In response, the DC Strokes Rowing Club called for a boycott of the USRowing Masters Nationals Championships at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota County, Florida due to the recently passed “Don’t Say Gay” law. They also implied that USRowing should avoid holding major national regattas, to include championships and trials events, in states with laws unfriendly to LGBTQ+ people to help guarantee their safety and comfort during these events. Boycotting or avoiding holding a regatta in one state, such as Florida, with anti-LGBTQ+ laws would necessitate corollary similar actions for all other states listed above. This would mean that USRowing would not host events in or on: Oakridge, TN; Chattanooga, TN; Harsha Lake, OH; Sarasota, FL; Oklahoma City, OK; and Austin, TX.
A multi-state boycott is a problem for a few reasons. First: USRowing would no longer hold races on the only purpose-built, World Rowing class A course in the country, Nathan Benderson Park. Second: the untenable position would alienate rowers in all those states affected by the boycott. Third, even as a boycott may steer money away from state coffers, it also deprives local LGBTQ+ and LGBTQ+ friendly organizations from revenue they might otherwise receive from the regatta-associated tourism. These businesses are on the front line in local communities, helping to support and promote LGBTQ+ visibility.
A boycott also hands the conservative agenda a victory by removing the presence of LGBTQ+ rowers and supportive rowing community allies at local regattas. It is our view that having a visible presence in a repressive cultural environment challenges people to confront their personal bias and hatred as they interact and discover that the LGBTQ+ rowing community and their allies are their friends, neighbors, and respected, valued members of the larger community.
As an international individual membership organization, the Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation (GLRF) currently counts 1,747 members in 43 countries of which 1,012 members are located in the United States. Those members live in 46 states and the District of Columbia. While GLRF respects the right of every member to support the DC Strokes call for a boycott, we as an organization must reflect our broader membership by supporting the rowers where they row. Acceptance and inclusion are the most important issues that LGBTQ+ rowers face at clubs, programs, and at regattas. LGBTQ+ youth in particular needs visible examples of their futures selves at rowing venues across the country.
https://eurogames2022.eu/sports/rowing/
ROWING TOURNAMENT
The match will be a board to board race over a distance of 750 metres. One on one races according to a knock-out system; if you win, you progress to the next round, but if you lose, you are out of the tournament. There are two lanes for the match and a uprowing-area. Thursday 28 July 13:00-15:00 Time trials 750m all disciplines 15:30-17:00 Knock-out 1st round 750m all disciplines Friday 29 July 9:00-16:30 Knock-out 750m all disciplines Saturday 30 July 9:00-12:30 Knock-out 750m all disciplines 13:30-15:00 Finals 750m all disciplines 15:00-17:00 Open rowing event
Dear rowing enthusiasts,
Hereby we would like to invite you, your association and fellow rowing enthusiasts to attend and participate in the EuroGames 2022 Love to Move in Nijmegen from 27 July to 30 July 2022.
The EuroGames are an annual inclusive sports event; the edition in Nijmegen offers 19 different sports and expects around 2,000 participants of all levels, from beginner to advanced, to attend. For more information on this amazing meeting between sport fans, please visit www.eurogames2022.eu. All athletes are welcome! The EuroGames are an outstanding example of an event for the LGBTQI+ community and is thoroughly supported by the European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation in particular.
RV de Waal, RV De Drie Provinciën and NSRV Phocas will organize a regatta during the EuroGames 2022! This regatta will take place along the Spiegelwaal in Nijmegen on 28, 29 and 30 July 2022. The various races will be held over 750 meters at a beautiful location right next to the historical city centre of Nijmegen. You can find the tournament details, costs and schedule on www.eurogames2022.eu/sports/rowing.
We would be incredibly honoured and pleased to meet you and your fellow rowers in Nijmegen. Furthermore, numerous fun side events will be organised during the sports tournament. Prior to the EuroGames you might want to enjoy the festivities of/or take part in the 104th 4Days Marches, the world’s largest walking achievement event (www.4daagse.nl). Or you can travel to Amsterdam after the EuroGames, to attend the Pride Amsterdam from 30 July to 7 August (https://pride.amsterdam/).
To ensure a great event, we wish to invite as many rowers as possible from all over Europe. Will you help us to reach all the rowers we can? If so, please share this e-mail with as many rowers, umpires and others associated with rowing as you can.
You can register via the website and also find more information there. We will keep you informed.
Met vriendelijke groet,
With kind regards,
Céderique Ortmans,
Coordinator Rowing EuroGames 2022 Nijmegen
T: +31 6 53 40 40 31
E: rowing@eurogames2022.eu
W: www.eurogames2022.eu
