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PRIEST RIVER — Five teams and three individuals set new course records at this year’s PORPA Sprints.
The annual event saw about 50 competitors ages 7 to 70 propelling stand-up paddle boards, kayaks, canoes, rowing shells and even a pink flamingo float down the Pend Oreille River in a series of boat races Saturday, Aug. 9. Dozens of families and friends cheered the competitors on from the shores of the Priest River Recreation Area, also known as The Mudhole, where the Pend Oreille Rowing and Paddling Association hosted the races.
Competitors entered from areas as near as Priest River, Sagle, Sandpoint and Spokane to as far as California and Tennessee.
Youth rowers Brandon Russell, Pavel Adveyev, Rowan Norris and Lile Efferson, affiliated with the Spokane River Rowing Association, competed in the 1,000-meter rowing race. Despite having only learned to row a couple weeks prior to the event, the four finished with a new course record of 6:30 as the youngest ever to complete the course.
Other new course records set this year were 4:55 in the 1,000-meter experienced women’s double race by Andrea Featherston and Wendy Leavell; 5:25 in the 1,000-meter experienced women’s quad race by Featherston, Leavell, Okju Cha and Val Thompson; 4:56 in the 1,000-meter experienced mixed quad race by Erwin Muller, Val Thompson, Sean Sanders, Healani Johnson and Cha; 5:27 in the 500-meter tandem novice race by Zack Zahr and John Leavell; 2:12 by in the 200-meter under-11 girl’s race by Ava King; 2:15 in the 200-meter under-11 boy’s race by Eli Schneider; and 4:50 in the 500-meter experienced girl’s race by Hadassah Hodde.
According to PORPA, the highlight of the events was a four-person relay race, during which racers used at least three different non-motorized watercraft and tossed batons to their teammates between each leg of the race. One relay team included a dad paddling his young daughter for their leg of the race. Later, she was heard saying, “It was the best!”
Medals were given to competitors who finished in first to third places, with some of the youth rowers earning two medals for racing in multiple events.
