Hamilton-based rowing coach leading American delegation to world coastal-rowing championships: Meet Marc Oria

“Flat-water rowing, you’re on lakes, you’re on rivers, you have nice flat water,” Norton said, such as on the Great Miami River, on calm days.

Coastal rowing happens in rough waves along ocean shorelines. Norton and fellow Great Miami rower Chris Bak, 25, of eastern Cincinnati, recently qualified for Team USA to compete in coastal rowing championships near Lisbon, Portugal, along with athletes from Oklahoma and Texas also coached by Oria.

Norton and Bak each will compete in single-person boats. Before those championships, Oria will take them to his hometown of Barcelona, Spain, in early September so they can train three weeks in the waves of the Mediterranean Sea, as Oria once did. Before then, he has used other techniques to create waves on local calm waters.

“He just hops in the motorboat, or the launch, as we like to call it,” said Bak, who works in a management training program at Cintas and has dreamed of being on Team USA since 2012. “He does some circles around us,” whipping up waves.

But Oria wanted more. And he’s a clever man — on the faculty at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, with a doctorate in neuroscience, working with malformations of fetuses, such as spinal bifida, where surgeries can be performed 25 weeks into pregnancy.

“I was trying to be open-minded, and said, ‘Where can we get waves?’” Oria said. “And then I realized, we have Kings Island with the wave pool. We reached out to them, and they were extremely open to try it. They created really challenging waves, where we could practice a lot of skills for these kids.”

Oria, who has been asked by most of the Team USA rowers to also coach them while in Europe, believes the visit to Kings Island’s Soak City was a world-first: A coastal-rowing team training in a wave pool.

“He is a force,” said Kristen Riekert, co-president of the Great Miami Rowing board. “That’s a pretty good summary of Marc right there: Crazy, epic, interesting adventure to be on when you’re with him,” Riekert said.

Bak, who was trained by Oria on the University of Cincinnati rowing club, calls him, “probably one of the most positive people that I’ve ever met.”

“He always comes in with energy that I don’t know where he finds it,” Bak said. “I drink more coffee than I should and he’s got way more energy than I do on any given day.”

Bak has been dreaming about going to the Olympics and rowing for Team USA since beginning rowing in 2012. And, “Here we are, 10 years later, I finally made a spot on the team for the coastal championship team.”

U.S. Rowing doesn’t have high hopes for the first-ever coastal rowing rowing team. But Oria and his athletes have the attitude, Bak said: “Just because this is the first team doesn’t mean it has to be an unsuccessful team. We’re trying to get on the podium and have a good showing for the U.S.”

Oria himself started rowing at age 14, four years older than some of his teammates. He made the Spanish national team in 1999 in the four-man boat without a coxswain. He also made the Olympic trials but didn’t qualify for the Athens games.

Back at home

In Hamilton, “I’m rebuilding the team,” he said. “When I took over the team in February, I only had seven kids,” because of COVID-19 and other issues. He called youngsters to recruit them.

“We finished the year with 37 kids, with six boats racing at nationals, and with one of the most successful seasons for the history of the team,” he said. “We medaled at the Midwest, we sent six boats to the Nationals in Sarasota, Fla. Last weekend, at the Midwest Sprints in the Columbus area, all the kids, including novices, medaled.”

On the Great Miami, “We have a really nice stretch of water,” he said. “One of the most amazing stretches of water that we have around the Cincinnati area, and we have to use it. We have 3,000 meters of a nice stretch of water with no boats around.”

The next rowing season is starting along with the school year, so the team is looking for new members. People can register or find out more through the website, greatmiamirowing.com, or by calling 513-857-2494.

Oria also has bigger plans for the flat-water team: In addition to the team for high-school students and masters program for adults, he plans to add teams for middle-school students, like he enjoyed in his youth in Spain.