National Indoor Rowing Championships

Posted on : January 30, 2020

In the early hours of Saturday morning, 25th Jan 2020, SGS Rowing Club hit the road for the University of Limerick to complete at the National Indoors Rowing Competition. A crew of four boys raced in several individual events and one team event on the rowing machines. The first year students were Harry Graham, Finn Reid and Ben & Alan Lawlor. The 6am start was no problem for this crew and we arrived in UL at 9am, with enough time to take a tour of the Arena and the elite gym before starting our warm up for the first event. The time trail for Junior 14 boys was set at 4 minutes and each individual had to row as far as they could in that time. Finn came out best at 920 metres while Harry was close to him at 909m, Alan finished at 874m while Ben scored 848m. With the first race complete there was some time to debrief and take a tour of the University of Limerick Boathouse. The students got to try out the indoor rowing tank, view the launch pontoon on the River Shannon, and check out the boats and rowing equipment in the boat bays. With the tour complete we returned to the Arena for lunch and to watch some of the other competitors racing. Olympic medallist and World Champion Paul O’Donovan was racing the 2,000 metre event, as were other World Champions Fintan McCarthy, Shane O’Driscoll & Sanita Puspure. The afternoon racing consisted of a sprint race covering a distance of 500m. In a reverse of the morning results Harry managed to come home ahead of Finn in a time of 1 min 59 seconds while Finn completed it in 2:04. The brothers Alan and Ben finished in times of 2:14 and 2.26 respectively. With the sprints out of the way it was time for the team event, over a distance of 2,000 meters. The SGS crew were in a group of 14 teams including schools from Galway (The Bish and Colaiste Iognaid) as well as Enniskillen and local clubs St. Michaels and Castleconnell. The crew fought well and finished in a time of 8 minutes and 20 seconds placing them 10th overall. It was a great day for the lads who are new to the sport and they are looking forward to building on their experience over the coming months. Many thanks to the individuals who helped out on the day including coaches from Sligo Rowing Club and members of UL Rowing Club. Coach, Ronan Ivers,  would also like to acknowledge the support from the principal and staff at Sligo Grammar School in preparation for this event.