Congratulations to the women’s senior pair of Alison Graham and Rachel Beringer.
The pair put in a fantastic performance to win their event and earn them their title as Irish Champions. They won convincingly in a time of 7:46.1, over ten seconds clear of the field. The pair have been selected for the Home International team, along with Aine de Baroid and Helen Bergin (lightweight pair) and Victoria Mulholland (coxswain). Tracey Wilkinson (Head Coach – men’s club) has been selected to coach the Home International women’s team. The event is due to take place on the 26th of July in Cardiff Bay, where we wish them all the very best of luck.
Heather Campbell put in an excellent performance to win the women’s intermediate sculls title. Heather won her final in a time of 8:08.3, nearly three seconds ahead of a second placed Killorglin sculler. Congratulations to Heather on her fantastic win in such a difficult category.
Irish championships this year proved a disappointing affair for the men’s club, in particular the novice eight. On Friday 11th the men’s novice eights event took place. Queen’s entered with high hopes of taking the pot. From the start Queen’s and Trinity poked their noses out ahead of the field. Coming through a thousand, Queen’s had a length on the field with Trinity and UCD pushing back. At 500m there was overlap between Trinity, UCD and Queen’s. From the sidelines all three crews were level with 250 metres to go, where UCD managed to step on it, finding the boat speed they needed to push through Queen’s to the line. It was a heart-breaking loss to suffer but a fantastic race to have participated in. Unfortunately we can not come away winners this year but such a loss has instilled an insatiable hunger to win in those eight men. On Saturday, the intermediate eight never found the form or the rhythm to allow them to progress through a strong heat.
Next year should make for an interesting season with all rowers returning. Separate focus can be made on both novice and intermediate boat classes due to many rowers breaking status. This abundance of rowers should make competition for seats fierce and provide the standards required to win more pots in 2009.
Great thanks must be paid to all the coaching team, Tracey Wilkinson, Sean O’Kane, Paddy Doherty, Martin Campbell, John Armstrong, Paul Savage and Michael Polson for their invaluable efforts this year. QUBBC would also like to thank Martin McElroy for the fantastic training camp he provided the men’s club, in Strathclyde.
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