Trentham Boat Club Juniors Results

 

Trentham Boat club took its largest junior team ever to the English Indoor Rowing Championships in Manchester at the weekend (Sunday 30th January). Entering a team of 39 young people drawn from schools and colleges from throughout the area, the club was able to boast that every young person who competed returned home having set a new PB or clutching a medal.

 

The first medal winner of the day was Joe Andreson. Joe, 16 from Newcastle, had hopes of doing well in the championships as he has been working very hard at his training over the last few months. Joe said ‘I want to try out for the GB squad later in the month and I knew I needed to set a good time to be able to do so to. I hoped I might get a medal but I even surprised myself when I won the Gold. This has given me loads of confidence for the trials and I hope to do well there too.’

 

The next medal winner of the day was Rebecca Skerratt. Rebecca, 14 from Stoke-on-Trent has been training with the club for 3 years and has excelled in indoor rowing. Racing against 15 year olds, Rebecca remained controlled throughout the race and finished strongly in 1st place. Rebecca was cheered on by the whole team and especially by her younger sister Rachael who has recently followed her sister into the sport.

 

Thirteen year old Joss Taylor was the next to win a medal. Josh a pupil of St Joseph's College returned home with his first silver medal from a National championships.

 

Next came the team events. In these the competitors use one machine and have to take turns in rowing. The teams have all practised their change overs and this training showed during the races.

 

The first teams to race were the year 7 girls. These young people took up rowing 6 months ago when they moved onto high school.We were able to enter two teams and were very pleased with a creditable and hard fought for 6th and an amazing gold medal. The gold medal winning team of Catherine Robinson, Amy Watson (St.Joesph's) Hannah Chadwick and Racheal Skerrat (St.Peter's) had won their place in the A team through the times they had set in their individual races earlier in the day. None of these girls had raced in a team event at this level before and their result shows the standard of new young athletes we have coming into the club.

 

Next race was year 9 boys. J14 Boys of Ryan Harrison (Trentham High) Ollie Drakeford (Clayton High) Harry Mahony (St.Peters) and James Bevan were able to take 3rd, bringing home the Bronze medal.

 

The J16 Boys team of Joe Anderson, Tom Hall, Matt Fair (St.Peter's) and Rory McKenna (St.Joeseph's) were able to try to regain their Gold medal from 2009, which they were unable to defend last year due to the weather. Joe was able to repeat his gold medal winning form of earlier and lead the team to gold again.

 

Our other J16 Boys team of James Berger and Eran Bostock (St.Joeseph's) Kyle Pedley (Trentham High) and Jack Kidd (St.Pete'rs) were able to take bronze for the first time in this event. They finished 1 second in front of the 4th place team.

 

WJ16 Girls team of Rebecca Skerratt (St.Peter's) Becky Dell, Eleanor Thomas and Emily Butler (St.Joeseph's.) returned home with Gold. Becky, Eleanor and Emily are now training for GB Junior trails in October this year. They have already rowed for England as they were part of the Silver medal, winning 8 that raced in Ireland in June 2010.

 

WJ18 Girls team of Tammy Bloor Charlotte Mycock (St.Joesphs College) Laura and Lucy Cruxton (Six Form College)  won Gold. These 4 girls have taken Gold every time they have competed in this event. Charlotte, Lucy and Laura are involved in the GB Junior system, 3 of the only 4 young people who live north of the Thames to be so chosen. The 4th person, Lee Harison also rows for Trentham. Lee was unable to take part in the indoor championship as he was away taking part in the Thames Valley Head Racing Championship where he secured second and first places in his two races.  Lucy is ranked 9th in the country at this moment.

 

Another great performance was that of the year 8 boys. All our boys came in the top third in the rankings for their individual races and all had to perform in the j14 team event. These maybe a group of young people to look out for in the future, they are Thomas Chesworth; Joss Taylor (Trentham) Alec Connell and Harry Taylor (St.Joesph's).

 

Darren Barton, Head Coach Trentham Boat Club, said ‘Well, as their coach I was so proud of all who took part and I do believe the schools are a part of this success with helping build links and supporting the rowing and what we do.’

 

Jayne Fair
E: jayne998@btinternet.com