Rowers, fans taking home souvenirs of World Rowing Championships

Rowing fans and athletes alike may want to take home a souvenir from the World Rowing Championships at Nathan Benderson Park, which wrap up Sunday.

There is no shortage of items to choose from, ranging from cool T-shirts to cold drinks.

“One of our No. 1 sellers is the athlete’s name shirt. Every competitor who is in the event has their name on the back,” said Chris Cookson, owner of the official merchandise tent.

“Another popular item from our local supplier, Tervis, is the Tervis bottles. They came through (Thursday) morning and restocked us. It’s been fantastic,” Cookson said.

Also popular souvenir is the stuffed Scully the pelican, selected as 2017 World Rowing Championships mascot in January.

“Right now we are getting a lot of fans because the athletes are still in the middle of the competition. We will start to see more athletes as they are either eliminated or finish their races and they start to come in. The local fans and community have been fantastic,” Cookson said.

Audrey Batista-Vieira was welcoming fans and athletes alike to the Butter & Cayenne tent, where active-wear tops are a specialty.

“(Wednesday and Thursday), the athletes were coming over, and saying, ‘Oh, that’s not what I am used to seeing,’ ” Batista-Vieira said.

“My mission at Butter & Cayenne is to get my hands on versatile, hard-to-find active wear that taps our senses and works-plays-chills as hard as you and I do, in style,” she says on her website, butterandcayenne.com.

Leon Kendrasko of N/D Sports said he is selling T-shirts and visors. Also popular are fleece jackets – being sold primarily to European athletes who will soon have snow in the homeland.

Kendrasko was wearing a “Blades of the World” tank top with oar-shaped flags of competitor nations. That’s a popular item, too, he said.

With temperatures still in the 90s, any cold refreshment at Benderson Park is popular with fans and athletes.

“One guy came by three times in one day,” Margarita Valenzuela said at the Culver’s tent.

Ice cream and frozen lemonade were sought for relief from the scorching heat.

Over at the Joasis shaved ice truck, perhaps the most-popular refreshment has been the lemonysnicket, said owner Joellen Whatman.

“The lemonysnicket is fresh squeezed lemonade frozen into a slush drink. This has been a great venue. The people have been so nice. Of course, being hot the way it has been this week, yeah, this has been a pretty popular spot this week,” Whatman said.

This story was originally published September 28, 2017 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Rowers, fans taking home souvenirs of World Rowing Championships."