Welsh Indoor Rowing Championship
The sixteenth Welsh Indoor Rowing Championships attracted an excellent entry of over 400 individual competitors and nearly 30 teams and battled it out over seven and half hours of competition to become crowned Welsh Champions. Commencing at 9.20am and finishing on time with the University Team race at 4.45pm.
It all kicked off with the Men’s Fresher event, which is for 1st year rowers in University and which boasted the highest number of participants with 49 doing battle over three heats. Charlie Davis lead home his colleague from Cardiff University Jona Lloyd in a time of 6:37.9 with Leo Butt from Southampton Solent University picking up the third place medal.
Andy Hammond also from Southampton Solent University, made the journey back to the south coast more enjoyable by taking the honours in the Men’s Under 23 lightweight category in a time of 6:37.4 from two Cardiff University students Santiago Borges Rodriguez and Joe Avery.
Josh Bugajski, Cardiff University won in convincing style in 6:01.6 to take the Men’s Under 23 title, in a clean sweep for Cardiff with Chris Morris and Vince Deluca collecting the other medals. Josh also lowered the first of many welsh records to be broken by nearly 7 seconds in this category.
Race 5 brought together the Men’s J18, J17 & J16 categories together with the Men’s Open Lightweights, which City of Cambridge RC, Barnaby Price took in a time of 6:33.2. However the fastest time of this race came from Matthew Hnatiw Cardiff City RC in the J18 category in a time of 6:27.2. Sam Bannister from Gordon’s Sch in Surrey chased Matthew home in taking the J16 title and also lowered the Welsh Championship time to 6:30.4, with Stephen Griffiths, Hereford RC taking the J17 title in a time of 6:47.7
The sixth & Seventh races of the day brought the first ladies to the machines with the second largest category of 42 competitors in the Women’s Fresher category. Cardiff University again took the medals with Kirsten Berggren winning in a time of 7:49.6. from Anna Horne and Robyn Jones.
Race 8 saw the Men’s Open competitors on the front row with the Women’s Under23 Lightweights on the back row. The same three competitors took the medals this year as last year in the Men’s Open with Evgenii Trofimov from Marine Technical University, Russia winning in 6:13.8 from Dan John, Cardiff City RC who swapped places with Matthew Vanstone, Prison Service in 3rd.
Jess Christley, from Cardiff University took the U23 lightweight title in a time of 7:57.6 leading from the first stroke to the last.
Steph Hislop took the women’s open title in a time of 7:23.6, however the fastest time of the day for the ladies was achieved by Helen Roberts, Cardiff University in the Under 23 category in a time of 7:17.1
Race No. 10 brought together the remaining Men’s lightweight categories, with Anton Cotter taking the gold medal back to Spain in the 30+ event in a time of 6:45.8.
James Hart from Wiltshire took the 40+ title in the quickest lightweight time of the day in 6:32.5, no doubt achieved by closeness of Alistair Peake in 2nd place.
Keith Hiley, Worcester, for the 2nd year running took the 50+ title in a time of 7:03.7 while Eric Winterbottom from Coleraine in Ireland, just squeezed out John Exley, despite the lead changing hands a few times in the 60+ category in a time of 7:09.0
Grahame Cooper, Birmingham also had another tight race but held on to beat Chris Hore in the 70+ category in a time of 8:10.3
.Race No. 11 brought together the Men’s 40+ and 70+, with Andrew Sangster, from Grimsby leading home the field in a very respectable time of 6:16.0, from Warren Matthews in 2nd place for the second year running, and Will White in 3rd.
Michael Wrenn from Sub 7, Birmingham, set a new Welsh Championship time in the 70+ event of 7:11.7 by smashing the existing record by some 44 seconds, the existing record was also broken by 2nd place Terry Coging and 3rd place Andrew Mollett.
The next race brought together the Men’s 50+ & 60+ and the excitement didn’t cease with Will Wright from Devon, taking the 60+ title in 6:48.4. In doing so he also broke the British 65-69 category by nearly three seconds. Marcus Sherwood from Sussex and Roger Thorney collected the other medals.
Andy Osborn, Sub 7 took the 50+ title in a time of 6:53.3 from Paul Winton from the Royal Navy and Derek Kym, Wiltshire.
Race 13 brought together 9 categories of women’s events, with probably the best performance produced by Marjorie Roome, Sub 7, London in taking the 60+ title and setting a new Welsh Championship time of 7:54.5, smashing the previous title by some 44 seconds. Sue Clayton-Smith, Winchester, took the 40+ title in 7:44.6, Glenys Rugman from Cardiff City RC took the 50+Lwt category in 8:42.0, Debbie Cain, Dorset took the 40+Lwt title in 7:48.8, and Kara Chesworth from Aberdyfi RC took the 30+Lwt title in 7:44.0
Isabella Timmerman, Hereford Cathedral Sch, Mathilde Hodgkins-Byrne, Hereford RC and Kerstin Watts, Llandaff RC won the Women’s junior 18, 17, & 16 titles, respectively.
And so to the last 2k race of the day and what a race it was, Graham Benton set a new championship record overall in the 30+ category in a tremendous time of 5:55.0. His splits for the race were 1:29.1, 1:29.8, 1:28.4 & 1:27.7. A right battle took place behind Graham, but Craig Petersen got the better of Adam Scrivner with both competitors in under 6:10.0.
It was good to see the return of the adaptive categories after a barren year last time out, and it was Gus Mckechnie, from Southampton Solent who took the LTA title with Ashley Davies having similar success in the TA event.
Although the Welsh Schools Indoor Championships was held the previous day, well over 60 youngsters battled it out for the junior categories from 11 to 15 years old, which gave the seniors a little rest bit before the 500 metre sprints.
Although there weren’t many age categories in the sprints nearly fifty individuals ripped into the machines with the quickest time of the day going to Andrew Affleck, Bradford on Avon RC in a time of 1:18.4. in taking the open title, while Evgenil Trofimov, from St Petersburg Russia took the 40+ sprint in a time marginally slower of 1:18.7 The quickest lady was Stephanie Mais from Llandaff in 1:41.7.
And so finally to the team events were nearly 40 teams battled it out for the honours in the 3 events. Jon Goodall took time off from the microphone and managed to find himself in alongside his new teammates, Sergey & Evgenii, and Graham Benton to give a demonstration of team rowing in a time of 8:00.0, over a minute quicker than 2nd placed City of Swansea RC. Another local rowing club took third place which was quiet an achievement as all the team were juniors. Unfortunately no open women’s teams materialised, something, which was reflected in the individual entries, so here’s hoping a larger entry can be generated next year.
In the University events Swansea Men’s pipped Cardiff comfortably to reverse last years result in a time of 8:26.6. while 2nd & 3rd could not be split in a time of 8:39.9
Cardiff did manage 1st & 2nd in the ladies event, while Swansea had to settle for third
So after nearly seven and a half hours of racing on the second day, the hall was returned to normal, the competitors some with medals ventured outside to make the long journey home. Another fantastic day of racing on time, a real credit to the organisers and competitors alike who helped achieve this. Special thanks to the men on the microphones, Nigel Mayglothling and Jon Goodall, who’s enthusiasm is always appreciated by both the competitors and spectators alike, and the staff of Cardiff Harbour Authority Water Activity Centre, and particularly Simon Larkin from Concept2 who never seems to get flustered despite all the stress around him keeping the race system flowing smoothly.
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