The Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) governs intercollegiate rowing between varsity men's heavyweight, men's lightweight, and women's lightweight rowing programs across the United States, while the NCAA fulfills this role for women's open weight rowing. It is the direct successor to the Rowing Association of American Colleges, the first collegiate athletic organization in the United States, which operated from 1870–1894. The IRA was founded by Cornell, Columbia, and Penn in 1894 and its first annual regatta was hosted on June 24, 1895. Today Navy and Syracuse are also part of the association. Each year these five schools choose whom to invite to the IRA National Championship Regatta and are responsible for its organization. The IRA runs the IRA National Championship Regatta, which is considered to be the United States collegiate national championship of men's rowing. This regatta includes both men's and women's (lightweight) events for sweep boats of all sizes. The IRA National Championship is the oldest college rowing championship in the United States. History Columbia, Cornell and Pennsylvania were the organizing stewards of the Poughkeepsie Regatta, the IRA Championship until 1949. The first edition was held on the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, New York, on June 24, 1895. The format through 1967 with the exception of 1964 was to line all the entries in the race onto stake-boats and fire a shotgun for the start. In the last race of this format in 1967 on Onondaga Lake, in Syracuse, New York, 16 varsity crews waited for the gun to begin their three-mile race—winner take all. The format was changed in the Olympic year, 1968, to heats and finals over a 2,000-meter, six-lane course. This heat-rep-final, six-lane, 2,000 meter format continues today. The regatta was cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021 a time trial will be added before the heats because of the difficulty of seeding during the pandemic. No spectators will be allowed for the 2021 regatta. Since the 1920s, when the West Coast crews—notably California and Washington—began to attend and regularly win, most crews considered the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship (known as the IRA) to be a de facto national championship. Two important crews, Harvard and Yale, however, did not participate in the heavyweight divisions of the event. (After losing to Cornell in 1897, Harvard and Yale chose to avoid the IRA, so as not to diminish the Harvard–Yale Regatta. It soon became part of