McGill University hosted the 2025 iteration of the Canadian University Championships at the Montreal 1976 Olympic venue over a cold November weekend.
Men’s Events
The big boats stayed true to form, and the University of British Columbia took home the gold in the eight, with the University of Victoria in second place, closely followed by the University of Western Ontario. The small boats showed a fraction more variety. Whilst UBC took the win in the men’s pair, the men’s double had a full podium of smaller rowing universities: McGill University, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Saskatchewan. The men’s single provided some of the best racing of the day, with Oliver Backer of Western just edging out Owen Bartel of UBC, who just bested Charles-Etienne Tabet of Brock University.
Women’s Events
While it was not an upset to see Queen’s University win the eight, UBC women placing fifth and UVic women placing fourth is a real surprise. It was all reasonably close on the clock, but it will weigh heavily on both teams that this breaks a multi-year streak of podium positions. Morgan Rosts proved her pedigree by winning the pair with Kira Mels-Williams for Western. The extra races took their toll, however, and she was beaten to the gold medal in the single by just one second by Gabrielle Yaremma of UBC. Again, it was heartening to see smaller programmes win medals in the double, with University of Guelph’s Ceildh Aho and Megan Livingstone winning gold and Carleton University’s Hayley Murray and Rosemary O’Brien taking bronze.
Lightweight Events
Four seconds split first to fourth in the men’s lightweight coxed four, with Brock just managing to get their bowball in front for gold. The men’s lightweight single allowed for some smaller programmes to make the A-final – Giancarlo DiPompeo of UVic took gold, but Landon Foley of the University of Calgary in fourth and Adam Muldoon of Nipissing University in fifth showed impressive resolve to break up the oligopoly. Queen’s lived up to expectations and took the win in the lightweight women’s coxed four; however, the standout women’s lightweight performance has to be from Isabel Izquierdo-Bernier of Club d’aviron de l’Université de Montréal, taking a hard-fought gold in the lightweight women’s single.
