SGS Students Excel at Sligo Indoor Rowing Competition

The 2021 Sligo Schools Indoor Rowing Competition took place last week in a ‘virtual’ format with several secondary schools taking part. Sligo Grammar School had 50 students entered. The race took place in the school gym hall with groups of 8 students using the rowing machines at a time. The race was a 5 minute time trial with the objective to row as far as possible in that time. Fifth year student Meabh Gillmor pulled an outstanding distance of 1294 meters which earned her top prize in the ladies category. Finishing in second place was fellow SGS student Rachel McManus with a distance of 1162m. While Meabh took up racing through the school rowing club Rachel has gained her experience through the Leaving Cert PE class in rowing run by Elayne McDermott. In the junior women’s category there was also some excellent results for SGS. This event had the largest entry in the ladies competition with 116 students taking part and two of our rowers finished in the top ten. Second year student Ruth Beirne fought a very hard race to finish third with a distance of 1180m, just shy of the overall winning distance of 1194m and a fraction behind second place 1181m. In the same race Zoé McNamee finished 5th with a distance of 1136m. Another notable result in this race was Orlaith O’Callaghan finishing 11th with a score of 1061m. Both Zoé and Orlaith are in first year and just took up rowing when they did trials with the rowing club in September. In the men’s events there was a win for Matthew Ryan in the senior race with a distance of 1382m and a third place finish for Paddy Wright with a distance of 1356m. At junior 16 level, with 80 students taking part there was a top ten finish for Finn Reid with a score of 1299m placing him 9th overall. The junior men’s race was the largest event of the competition with an entry of 144 boys racing. SGS had two students finishing in the top 10. Ronan Mullan finished 8th overall with a distance of 1239m and Conn Reid finished 10th with a score of 1236m. A huge thanks goes to Ronan Ivers who comes to the school every Friday to coach our rowers and at the weekends to take them rowing on the Garavogue. Very much appreciated!