Meet Andrew Mangan at HOCR 2022

This year at Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, US Para National Team athlete Andrew Mangan will be at the JL Racing tent on Saturday, October 22nd. Stop by the JL tent between 10:00am-11:00am for a meet and greet, and to learn about High Fives Foundation - the nonprofit that helped Andrew buy an adaptive PR1 single to train in.

Andrew Mangan

Andrew broke his neck when he was a junior in high school, which left him paralyzed from the chest down. He has been quite lucky in his recovery and, through hard work, has been able to regain the ability to walk and row. He runs a spinal cord injury support podcast, Connecting The Resilient, to help provide support and resources to other patients.

In his freshman year in college, he set the world record for the 100k erg to raise money for the High Fives Foundation, a non-profit Andrew works closely with that helps spinal cord injury athletes get back to the sports they love.

He was introduced to Para rowing in 2020, while at school at Stanford, and has since taken the sport by storm winning multiple national titles and placing 10th in the World Championships in 2022. His goal is to be a medal contender at the 2024 Paris Paralympics and to inspire others to face their own challenges with a positive attitude and a strong work ethic. Follow along here.

High Fives Foundation

The High Fives Foundation is a non-profit that helps injured athletes and veterans get back to the sports they love. High Fives has dispersed over $6 million to over 500 athletes in grants and camps to help them recover and succeed after their life changing injuries. High Fives helped Andrew purchase an adaptive PR1 single to train in.

"High Fives focuses on preventing life-changing injuries and provides resources and hope if they happen.

As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization since 2009, High Fives has helped countless injured athletes and Veterans get back to doing what they love. The Foundation aims to be the leader of education and recovery of life-altering injuries in outdoor action sports." (Source: highfivesfoundation.org)

Para-Rowing

The para rowing event is broken into three classifications: PR1 (rowers with minimal or no trunk function who primarily propel the boat through arm and shoulder function on a fixed seat with a backrest), PR2 (rowers that have functional use of arms and trunk but have weakness/absence of leg function to slide the seat, who use a fixed seat without a back) and PR3 (rowers with residual function in the legs which allows them to slide the seat. This class also includes athletes with vision impairment.).

The U.S PR3 4 finished Silver in Tokyo and the US has had other medals in the past Paralympics. There are a lot of new athletes on the U.S Para Team, under the direction of the Para High Performance Director, Ellen Minzner and para-rowing events are becoming more widespread across the US, allowing for more para athletes to get involved.