Kaitlyn Kynast, a Connecticut Boat Club (CBC) athlete for three years and now a freshman at Stanford University, has won the 2017 Fan’s Choice Award for USRowing’s Junior Athlete of the Year.
Kaitlyn was captain of the team the last two of her three years rowing with CBC where she broke every team record on every erg (rowing machine) workout and test and every running performance test. All three years she competed at nationals, winning a gold medal in 2016 (Mercer, NJ) & 2017 (Sarasota, FL). She was also a member of the Under 19 National Team for the last three years, winning a gold medal her novice year (Rio de Janeiro, 2015) and then a bronze in 2016 (Rotterdam, Netherlands) and 2017 (Trakai, Lithuania.). Off the water, Kaitlyn earned a first-place hammer and the title of World Indoor Rowing Champion (U-19) at the 2017 C.R.A.S.H.-B.s. Kaitlyn was the #1 undergraduate college recruit in the country and is presently the only college freshman sitting in a top D1 Varsity 8 boat at Stanford University.
“Kaitlyn was an amazing athlete to work with during her years at CBC and she absolutely deserves this prestigious award. I advise everyone to keep watching her athletic career which will no doubt lead her to be a serious contender for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, with an outside chance for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo,” says CBC Head Coach Liz Trond.
Connecticut Boat Club is a high performance girl’s youth (middle school and high school) rowing club and Women’s Master’s program based on the Norwalk River in Norwalk, Connecticut. Founded in the spring of 2010 by U.S. National Team Junior/CBC head coach Liz Trond, the team includes girls from throughout southwestern Connecticut and Westchester County New York. CBC has proven to be a dominant force in scholastic rowing, most notably bringing home medals at Junior Worlds from 2010-2017. The team dominates their competition at races including the Head of the Charles, the San Diego Crew Classic, the Saratoga Invitational, the Head of the Schuylkill, and the Head of the Housatonic to name a few. For more information, please visit the website and Facebook page.