Warwick high school rower to race in Spain

WARWICK — When most high school juniors were finishing their Regents exams and taking that deep sigh of relief, Niles Arner was heading straight to the airport to get on his flight to Seattle to compete at the USRowing Selection Camp that names the Men’s Junior Sculling National Team.

Arner, a junior at Warwick Valley High School, has rowed with the Warwick High School crew team, the East Arm Rowing Club in Greenwood Lake and is now a sculling rower with the Orange County Rowing Association (OCRA) in Newburgh.

Sculling is a form of rowing whereby each rower uses two oars, one on each side of the boat, or shell. Niles has primarily competed this past year in a single-man shell, but has occasionally competed in double-man events.

Albany, Philadelphia, Oyster Bay

Last fall, Arner competed in races on the Housatonic River in Connecticut, the Hudson River outside of Albany, the Passaic River in New Jersey and the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

The fall season came to a close at the Head of the Schuylkill regatta in late October just as Hurricane Sandy was making her way up the East Coast.

Once he accepted his medal for his single event as well as a gold medal for the double-man event he rowed with fellow OCRA team member Matthew Scholl from Cornwall, they loaded up their equipment and fled the area to escape Sandy, just as the storm began to drench Philadelphia.

Even though the climate in the Hudson Valley doesn’t permit year-round rowing, Niles trained daily with Orange County Rowing Association’s sculling coach Aric Meyer throughout the winter on a rowing machine as well as cross training to prepare himself for the spring race season.

As spring approached, Arner, along with teammate Scholl and Meyer, attended spring training/ranking camp in Aiken, S.C. Arners’ performance in South Carolina, coupled with his prior achievements, earned him the invitation he received in early April to attend the USRowing Selection Camp in Seattle.

Since then, he has competed in races every weekend this spring throughout the tri-state area, earning a collection of medals along the way, including a gold medal for his performance in the men’s lightweight single event at the Long Island Rowing Championships in Oyster Bay.

Training ground for the Olympics

USRowing selects, trains and manages the teams that represent the United States in international competition including the World Championships, Pan American Games and Olympics.

The Selection Camp in Seattle determines this year’s USRowing Junior National Sculling Team, consisting of a four-man boat, a two-man boat, and a one-man boat that will represent the United States at the World Rowing Junior Championships held this year in Trakai, Lithuania, from Aug. 7 to 11.

Additionally, four rowers from the Selection Camp in Seattle are chosen for the High Performance 2014 Junior Worlds Development Sculling Team. The goal of this team is to take the athletes who did not make the Junior National Team this year but show great promise and provide them with international training and racing experience.

Those selected rowers will train and race in Banyoles, Spain, from July 12 through 22.

Last week Arner was selected as a member of the USRowing High Performance 2014 Junior World’s Development four-man boat that will be traveling to Spain. Since being named to this boat, he and his three team mates have trained vigorously in Seattle. These four rowers departed Seattle on Wednesday for their trip to New York where they will join the remainder of the USRowing team prior to traveling to Spain to compete.

Essential information
For more information about USRowing, visit www.USRowing.org.

For more information about rowing in the Hudson Valley, visit www.orangecountyrowing.org and www.eastarm.org.