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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
It’s time. We need to call it, and we’re not talking about the election. The Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation has come to the conclusion that the 2021 Sin City Erg must be canceled. This decision was not taken lightly, and it is particularly difficult just as we were starting to create momentum for the Sin City Erg event. 2021 would have been our second year to run the competition and it is unique in that our erg competition, focused on lgbtq+ participation, includes men, women, and non-binary categories, and we offer both individual and team competition. A team category allows clubs to compete amongst each other (in 2x and 4x) as well as providing an opportunity for teammates to support their LGBTQ+ club members by participating in their squad or team.
We do plan to host 2022 Sin City Erg in Las Vegas, United States on 16 January 2022, and we encourage anyone interested in learning more about the event to subscribe to our email list for updates and announcements.
Although there is a set of decision making protocols published by various national rowing federations for rowing competitions, our concerns about the 2021 event began to develop with the publication of an article on 02 April 2020 in Science Magazine, suggesting that the coronavirus spreads through the aerosolization of the virus.
As rowers, we all know how hard we’re breathing when doing a piece on the erg. Then more news began to emerge about super spreader events at choral events where people are exhaling forcefully. Over the next few months, the media and the focus of the coronavirus spread turned away from touching infected surfaces to wearing masks to avoid catching or spreading the virus. The issue culminated with the American president, Donald Trump, contracting the virus, and no mention in any media article was made of him or anyone around him having contracted the virus from touching an infected surface or from touching their faces or eyes. To us, it doesn’t seem like an indoor rowing event is well suited in the current Covid-19 environment.
Certainly, clubs do have outdoor erg sessions, even before the emergence of the coronavirus. To safely host an outdoor rowing event, competitors would have to be spaced at least six feet apart, and given what we now know about the aerosolization of Covid-19, the ergs would have to be spread much further apart. A recent article in MSN News published on 13 October 2020 does support the possibility of hosting an outdoor event. However, an erg competition requires that all the rowing machines be wired together and to a computer. There is a minimum distance from the computer to the first rowing machine and also between the machines.
The competitive fervor of the event comes from the close side-by-side proximity of the competitors as well as the visual display of progress of the competitors in a racetrack-like display projected on a screen. It is difficult to project the race display indoors and to try to display the video outdoors would be extremely challenging.
If an outdoor rowing event is pursued, then there is the weather, either too hot or perhaps too rainy, which in both cases is probable in Las Vegas in January. Finally, there is the issue of masks which seem antithetical to rowing fast on an erg, and even if we could hold an event with masks, the burden of ensuring everyone, spectator and competitor, is wearing a mask [properly, over nose and mouth] makes the event extremely challenging, potentially a liability for GLRF, and turns the event from enthusiasm into unpleasant enforcement.
We held out hope that perhaps a vaccine would emerge that would allow the Sin City Erg to proceed but three media articles spread really cold water on that arousing hope:
a Marketwatch interview on 01 August 2020 with Dr. Michael Osterholm, epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, who states that the virus will be around for our lifetime and that effective vaccines are a long ways off.
a Politico article published on 25 September 2020 that predicts how the Pandemic will finally end, suggesting that a return to normal will take place around November 2021.
a Wall Street Journal interview published on 07 September 2020 with the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, who projected that workers could return to work around six months after a vaccine had been distributed. His statement implies when corporations will feel comfortable having people congregate closely, something that is a fundamental part of an erg event.
We also have subscriptions to daily email updates from the New York Times Coronavirus Briefing and the Los Angeles Times Coronavirus Today. The news in the past few weeks has been extremely discouraging as the rate of new infections has risen at an alarming rate. Two recent media articles about the rise of the infections helped cement our decision to cancel:
a MSN News Intelligencer opinion article dated 12 October 2020 that predicts “a fall and winter could make the cornonavirus not just more infectious but more lethal likely…”
a Wall Street Journal article dated 15 October 2020 that looks at why Covid-19 is spreading again, and points to an issue the LGBTQ+ community can totally relate: being safe fatigue.
Finally, we found this Motley Fool article dated 06 October 2020 that paints a bleak picture of how Clark County and the City of Las Vegas are embracing a virus-safe environment.
All of these factors point to the possibility of infections among spectators, volunteers, and participants. For us, even one infection is too many.
As most rowers are aware, a cascade of rowing regatta cancellations has occurred in the past 30 days around the world.
GLRF has been monitoring the Eurogames 2020 website for any updates. On 16 April 2020, the Eurogames 2020 organization announced the postponment of the event with no proposed or published future date. If you read the news announcement, it implies that the Eurogames 2020 organizing committee is hoping to bump their event into 2021, thereby pushing future Eurogames events further out.
Of equal importance is the legal terms of the status of the event: postponed and not cancelled. This affects any athlete who has registered and paid. In effect, it delays or prevents the automatic issuance of refunds. The language of the Eurogames 2020 announcement about refunds appears bewildering. They state that while the event is in the postponment status, there is no effect [change] on potential refunds. However, if you read their earlier news post, Eurogames 2020 did change the terms and conditions such that the regular cancellation deadline has been moved back to 30 June 2020.
Still confused? If we are correctly connecting the dots, an athlete who has registered may request a cancellation refund, if they want, between now and 30 June 2020. Reading the Terms section of the website, section 7, Cancellation Policy:
if you cancel by 30 June 2020, you get a 50% refund of the 'participation fee' which is Euro 80 for EGLSF members and Euro 100 for non-EGLSF members. The terms do not address the sports fee, which for rowing is Euro 20. The terms seem to imply that sports fees, similar to purchased tickets, are non-refundable.
if you cancel after 30 June 2020, you can get a 50% refund but only if you provide proof of illness.
if the event is cancelled by Eurogames 2020 organizers, a refund of at least 70% of all fees will be made (implying that the refund could be more, and since they say "all fees," that might include the sports fees.)
Obviously, an event cancellation means a huge loss of income to Eurogames 2020 and that explains their deliberate use of the term postponment. This is no different than the San Diego Crew Classic which canceled their event this spring. In the Crew Classic email that was sent to vendors, they asked vendors to forego a refund and receive a 50% discount on a vendor booth for 2021. The Crew Classic organizing committee, while not sharing the actual financials, implied in their email that the event cancellation would have a massive financial impact on their organization and their ability to host the event going forward.
The Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation is very excited to announce our partnership with Rowing The World. This rowing travel company specializes in trips for rowers in many destinations around the world. Because many gay and lesbian (LGBTQ+) travelers enjoy an opportunity to travel with like-minded members of their community, we thought it would be brilliant to create an LGBTQ+ focused rowing tour.
The Rowing The World tours are full package vacations (holidays). The first LGBTQ+-focused trip will be magical Lago Maggiore in northern Italy, with a 7-day rowing tour beginning 27 September 2020. http://lgbtrowingtour.glrf.info Everyone is welcome to enjoy the trip. You certainly do not have to be a member of the Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation. However, one of the benefits of our partnership with Rowing The World is a CDN$100 discount for GLRF OnTheWater members for the trip.
Although GLRF OnTheWater members do receive a tour discount, there are no revenue sharing arrangements with Rowing The World. All participants, including GLRF staff, pay the same tour price. For GLRF, the partnership creates an additional benefit for its members, to enjoy rowing in a recreational format with a community-focused environment. Note that Rowing The World offers a further discount if five or more members join the tour from one club.
If you or any of your club members have any questions, please contact Rowing The World at https://rowingtheworld.com/contact/ and you can also use this link to sign up for their general email list.
Here is a link to the poster promoting the rowing tour. We hope you will post it at your club or forward it along to your members.
Ciao!
