The Gold Cup

Join us on October, 29, 2022 for the 2022 Gold Cup race on the Cooper River. The first race will launch at 8:30 AM, for the full race schedule Click Here.

The Philadelphia Challenge Cup event, otherwise known as “The Gold Cup,” began in 1920, during the heyday of Philadelphia rowing. The event pitted the best amateur male single scullers in the world against each other. Philadelphia’s own John B. Kelly Sr. was the first recipient. The contest, and the cup, disappeared in the early 1960s, only to reemerge in 2011 after a 50-year hiatus. A private group of Philadelphia rowing enthusiasts rediscovered the Gold Cup and reinstated the event and tradition to its rightful place in single scull rowing prominence, with the positive expansion of the competition to women.

The course for the Gold Cup is a sprint race on the Cooper River in Camden, New Jersey.

In 2022, the Gold Challenge Cup Foundation elected to increase the purse. Prize money of $16,000 will be awarded to the Champion; $12,000 for second place, $8,000 for third place and $4,000 for fourth place. A Gold Cup medal will be given to each winner, and his and her names will be inscribed on the base of the historic Gold Cup, alongside of some of history’s greatest single scullers.