ENNISKILLEN Royal Boat Club sent its two senior eight squads down to compete in the City of Cork regatta held at the Irish Rowing Centre, the location for the Irish Senior Championships in three weeks’ time.
The club doesn’t normally compete in this event given the distance to travel but felt the rowers needed an extra race in preparation for the Championships. The format of the regatta means different classes compete in the same race so school sides compete against senior university sides.
The rowers duly delivered with the girls J18 eight of Emily Black, Ruby Hamill, Naomi Robinson, Zara Welsh, Eva Johnson, Rhea Cartin McCloskey, Kate Huddlestone, Isabella Wright and cox Jessica Thompson, coming third overall on the heats ahead of all the other school crews, as well as five university crews.
This qualified them into the “A” final where they comfortably won the J18 class.
The boys followed up by also coming third in the heats, ahead of many senior crews. They qualified for the “A” final and beat the only other J18 in that race by 3 seconds to complete a successful day. Crew was William Bogle, Ryan Topping, Evan Donaghy, Luke Bailey, Austin Cassidy, Andrew Cuthbertson, Lorcan Sreenivasan, Christian Timoney and cox Abbey Wilson.
The climax of the season for the junior rowers will be next weekend at Lough Rinn when the J13 to J15 crews compete in the Irish Junior Championships. The seniors now have three weeks hard training in preparation for the Irish Senior Championships.