Scottish IRC 2010 Race Report
Over 500 individuals and teams competed at the 2010 Scottish Indoor Rowing Championships held at the Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh on Sunday 31st January 2010. Full results are available in the Results section.
There were a number of notable performances in the Junior Championships including Kerion Brown(Clydesdale ARC) winning both the U17 and the U19lwt boys events and from Emily Colley of Glasgow Academy who won the U16 girls event before later claiming a silver in the Open Women's category.
The fastest individual times for 2km came from Callum McBrierty (George Watson's College) and Karen Benett (Clydesdale ARC), with Callum posting his time in the U19Hwt event and then leading George Watson's College to victory in the U19 Team Event.
Victor Gilbert of Age Without Limits, the Championships oldest competitor at 82 was narrowly pipped for Gold in the over 60Hwt by George Meredith, 61, of Gravesend IRC. George had earlier taken 2nd place in the Lwt category behind John Howie of Midlothian. It was a successful day for the Howie household with Barbara Howie also winning the Women's Adaptive Event.
The team events again proved hugely successful with Team AEGON retaining their title, in the Men's Team, despite strong opposition from Aberdeen Boat Club and HMS Vanguard. A composite of Glasgow based rowing clubs were winners of the Women's Team.
The event also incorporated the Scottish Universities Championships with Strathclyde University's Mike McLaren and Megan Mackie winning the Men's and Women's Open Hwt titles respectively. Megan's result was even more impressive considering she was forced to re-row after a technical problem with her ergo. Heriot Watt University retained the Victor Ludorum, for the most successful club, with consistent point scoring and a clean sweep of wins in the team events.
In addition to the normal races over various distances and times, the Championships played host to a special event in the form of an attempt, by Matthias Auer of Clyde ARC, on the World Lightweight Marathon Record. Matthias amazed the crowd by maintaining a split of 1.47 for almost two hours of rowing, smashing the previous record by over two minutes and recording a time of 2hr 29min 56.7sec.
The Championships concluded with the newly offered 500m sprint category providing a great climax to the day. Indeed the Men's Lwt event saw a dead heat between Shaun Callaghan and Colin Barnet of Team AEGON.
Photographs of the days racing are available at www.darrochphotography.ifp3.com and www.cofd.co.uk.
