High Point’s Most Unlikely Global Sports Event Is Rowing
High Point’s Most Unlikely Global Sports Event Is Rowing
On October 24, 2026, two of the best women’s rowing crews in the world will line up on Oak Hollow Lake in High Point, North Carolina.
On one side: the reigning World Champion Team USA Women’s Four.
On the other: the reigning Olympic Champions from the Netherlands.
This isn’t the Olympics. It isn’t the World Championships. And it isn’t taking place in Boston, Princeton or London.
It’s happening in High Point.
That says something about how far the Lenny Peters Cup has come—and about what High Point is becoming.
An International Event in an Unlikely Place
The Lenny Peters Cup is not a traditional rowing regatta.
Its centerpiece is direct, head-to-head competition involving elite international athletes. Previous editions have brought Olympic-level rowers from countries including Great Britain, Germany, Australia and Ukraine to Oak Hollow Lake to compete against Team USA.
The event also connects that international competition with some of the world's most recognizable universities.
The University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh have traveled to High Point to compete against Duke University and High Point University. In 2025, Edinburgh won The Dash for the Lenny Peters Cup, defeating the other international and collegiate crews.
That combination is unusual: Olympic-level athletes, international universities and NCAA programs sharing the same course in High Point.
And the competition itself is designed to create drama.
The spring edition uses a Ryder Cup-style points system, with Team USA competing against an international World Team across multiple boat classes. Every race contributes to the overall score, turning a collection of races into a team competition.
In 2026, Team USA defeated the World Team 9–5 to reclaim the Cup, while more than 1,000 rowers competed in the North Carolina Rowing Championships held alongside the event.
Serious Investment Creates Serious Competition
Building an event capable of attracting athletes at this level requires more than a good race course.
The Lenny Peters Foundation has made a significant financial commitment. For the October 2026 event, the Foundation provided an additional $200,000 to support the international regatta. Bethany Medical serves as a presenting sponsor, while RP3 supports the event's warm-up zone.
The event also puts meaningful prize money directly in front of elite athletes.
In 2025, Team USA's Lauren O'Connor won the Women's International Singles race and its $10,000 prize, defeating Germany's Tabea Schendekehl and Ukraine's Kateryna Maistrenko. Schendekehl had won an Olympic bronze medal in Paris.
That investment creates something rare in rowing: a competition designed not simply to attract elite athletes, but to give them a compelling reason to race hard in front of a live audience.
More Than a Rowing Event for High Point
The significance of the Lenny Peters Cup extends beyond the water.
High Point is internationally recognized for the High Point Market and its role in the global home furnishings industry. The city is also developing its identity as a destination for sports, events and tourism.
The Lenny Peters Cup fits directly into that opportunity.
The regatta brings athletes, coaches, families and spectators from outside the region to Oak Hollow Lake. Event organizers estimate that the competition generates more than $2 million in annual economic impact for High Point and surrounding communities. Recent events have attracted more than 1,000 athletes and several thousand spectators.
Those visitors stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, shop, travel throughout the community and spend money with local businesses.
That is the fundamental value of sports tourism: the competition happens at the venue, but the economic activity happens throughout the city.
Oak Hollow as a Sports Asset
There is another opportunity here.
Oak Hollow Lake is more than a recreational amenity. The Lenny Peters Cup demonstrates that it can serve as a venue for high-level national and international competition.
That matters because sporting events create infrastructure and experience that can lead to other events.
A successful international rowing competition gives High Point a working model for using Oak Hollow Festival Park to pursue future collegiate, national and championship-level competitions.
The lake becomes part of the city's sports infrastructure—and an asset that can attract visitors who might otherwise have no reason to come to High Point.
Local Roots, International Reach
Perhaps the most compelling part of the Lenny Peters Cup is the connection between its international ambitions and its local foundation.
The event is supported by local philanthropy, local businesses, local volunteers and local rowing programs.
The Lenny Peters Foundation's investment is not simply underwriting an elite sporting event. It is helping create an environment where young athletes from the Triad can see the highest level of their sport up close.
A local high school rower can watch a World Champion compete.
A High Point University athlete can race against Oxford or Edinburgh.
A family from the Triad can come to Oak Hollow and watch Olympic champions without traveling to Europe or an Olympic venue.
That connection gives the event a purpose beyond competition.
What High Point Has Built
The Lenny Peters Cup does not have the century-long history of the Head of the Charles, nor does it need to compete with the Olympics or World Championships for global attention.
Its opportunity is different.
It is building a specialized international sporting event around something High Point already has: a remarkable lake, a growing rowing community, philanthropic leadership and a city increasingly comfortable thinking beyond its traditional economic identity.
The formula is straightforward:
Bring the world's best athletes to High Point. Give them a competition worth winning. Give the community a reason to come watch. And create an event that benefits both the athletes and the city.
On October 24, Team USA's World Champion women will race the Olympic Champions from the Netherlands on Oak Hollow Lake.
For the rowers, it will be about winning.
For High Point, it represents something larger.
The world is coming to High Point.
