Buffalo Rowers Head to World Championship Trials

BUFFALO, NY — Olympic fever is quickly building among summer sports fans, but some even younger athletes are leading the way for the 2028 Games. Head coach RJ Rubino and his team at Row Buffalo have some of the most talented athletes on the water in the 716, but what about the world?

“If we pass these tests, it will be the third year in a row that we have sent teams from Buffalo to the U.S. national team,” Rubino said. “We will be one of the few clubs in North America that can say that.”

Success is one of the first words in Row Buffalo’s vocabulary. Rubino prepares for one last workout before dozens of his rowers head to Windsor, New Jersey, to compete for a spot in the world finals.

“We have guys coming back as under-23 world champions and trying their luck at senior level. We have guys who have never reached this level, middle-class women who will give their best this year and be fully eligible at the same level next year,” he added. “So there is certainly a wide range of expectations and goals there.”

The team includes a few singles rowers like Will Tran.

“I originally wanted to play baseball in high school, but that didn’t work out. So I got into rowing and really fell in love with it,” he said.

The Chicago native hopes to raise the Row Buffalo flag atop his respective mountain by the end of the week.

“The team here is one of the most competitive teams I’ve ever been a part of and I’ve really enjoyed it,” Tran added. “I really want to go out there and make a big statement about who I am. And I’m here for the next two years and I’ll be at the world championships at some point.”

Across the way, Liam Feeney and Isaiah Aljuwani, who also row for a local high school program, cruise Buffalo’s waterways.

“I would say the hardest part of this sport is the commitment and showing up every day, every morning, working hard and just trying to be successful,” Feeney said.

All those long hours have already made this duo one of the best rowers in the country.

“It really means a lot. It can really speak to how many hours you put in, how many early mornings, late nights on the water, off the water or excursions,” Aljuwani said. “Everything you do really leads up to that, leads up to that.”

But the next hurdle is the world qualifiers, and later?

“The senior national team is where you decide the Olympic team,” Rubino said. “Every year there’s a World Championship and every four years there’s the Olympics. So being on the junior, under-23 or senior national team puts you in a great position within the national team system to one day become an Olympian.”