Success for Clonmel Rowing Club at Cork City Regatta

Cork City Regatta took place at the National Rowing Centre in Inniscarra on Saturday and Sunday last. With the Irish Rowing Championships taking place at this venue in less than a fortnight, several of the Northern Ireland crews headed south to get a handle on the competition and they didn’t come on a wasted errand.

One of the remarkable features of rowing today is the sheer volume of competitors taking part, particularly in the 1x and 2x classes. Some of the boat classes had 10 different heats, with six competitors in each heat, and to the credit of the organisers it all ran off smoothly, without a hitch.

Being an early riser comes with the territory if you are a rower today. The first race started at 8 am and races continued at five-minute intervals throughout the day. When it’s all done and dusted by evening time, everyone is pretty shattered.
Conditions were perfect and Inniscarra is comparable to any of the top venues for rowing around the world when the weather is favourable. When it’s not, well that’s a different story.

Clonmel Rowing Club’s men’s pair of Gerald Nugent and James Hurley were back in the boat for the first time in three weeks after taking a break to sit their Leaving Certificate exams. The lack of fitness showed and they finished down the field in the pairs. They showed some signs of the old sparkle in the 2x on Sunday when they came second in the Intermediate class.

A GREAT WIN
Our junior 18 men can all produce a decent effort in the 1x, with Rory Keeley proving the best of the bunch, finishing in 7th place overall in a huge field. Rory was two seconds faster than Sam Fleming, with Brian Hurley and Cian Mellerick posting identical times some five seconds later. However, when we stick these four guys in a quad coxed by the versatile Ciaran Hickey, the synergy created exceeds the sum of its parts and a great win in the men’s j18 4x+ was the result.

Our men’s j16 4x have turned into a tidy crew, but so have the opposition and on this occasion their best efforts just fell short of securing a podium finish. However, Benjamin Wall did have a nice win in the j16 1x. Anna Kiely and Kate Meehan won their heats convincingly in the 1x and in the final Kate brought home the bacon for the second time in two weeks. Paul Nugent was the only member of the masters taking part and he came second in the five-boat final.

This weekend the club goes to the 1k Classic in Lough Rynn, county Leitrim on Saturday and the Fermoy Sprint Regatta on Sunday.

In other news, congratulations to Norma Hurley, who won the club lotto last week, and thanks to everyone for their continued support.