A group of 43 athletes attended the event at the University Limerick Sports Arena, where they competed against 100s of clubs from all over Ireland. They competed in three events throughout the day, 2000m or set time, 500m and 2000m relay. For the year 9 group that attended this was their first taste at indoor rowing racing. Callum O’Hare came 13th in the J14 4-minute race the fastest out of our group of years 9’s pulling an impressive 1046m, also in this event was our fastest rower in this event Rory Keogh placing 7th in this event pulling 1073m. In the WJ14 4-minute race Niamh Cassidy placed 2nd with a distance of 1063m which is a very strong score for a rower of this age category. Fastest year 9 girl in this category was Niamh Byrne pulling 919m which is a good score for her first time at this event.
MJ15 500m top 10 finishes for John O’Kane (7th) and Oran Harty (10th) in an extremely tough field. WJ15 500M, Bronze medal for Laura turner who also earlier in the day competed in the WJ15 5-minute race where she won Gold, Laura showed true grit in both races to come away with medals in both events. Niamh Cassidy won her second medal of the day in the WJ14 500m where she again placed second just beating fellow club rower Olivia Jordan who took 3rd place in an exciting neck and neck race. Cathy Fallis also placed into the top 10 in this event, showing the depth of talented athletes at the club.
Zoe Elliott the oldest athlete from the club who attended the event showed great maturity in her racing which led to her placing 5th in the WJ16 2000m race with a 10 second improvement from the start of the month. Later in the day she then competed in the WJ16 500m where she placed 2nd behind a strong Tullaghan Bay opposition by a small margin of 1.4 seconds.
The relays teams all produced great results but the standout team who won Gold was the WTY2 team (ERBC A) made up of Niamh Cassidy, Olivia Jordan, Cait Little and Sophie Stewart.
Congratulations to all ERBC athletes who attended this event and their great individual performances!
Many thanks to Barney Rix, Jane Willis, Iain Kennedy and Gerry Murphy who travelled to Limerick with the kids.
The rowers will travel to Lagan Scullers Head on Saturday, 8th February.
The 63rd Erne Head of the River takes place on Saturday, 7th March. This is the largest event for the Club and if you help in any way, especially if you have a small boat and can provide safety cover during the event please get in touch with Derek Holland by emailing enniskillenrbc@gmail.com
If you would like to sponsor an event at this year’s Head please e mail Derek for further information.
