School’s Indoor Rowing Blitz Summary
Sligo Rowing Club in partnership with Sligo Sport and Recreation Partnership hosted the now annual Secondary Schools Indoor Rowing Blitz. Making a return to an in-person event after 2 years of virtual events due to Covid it was an exciting day. The event is run as part of the SSRP Urban Outdoor Adventure Initiative, a Sport Ireland project funded through Dormant Accounts.
The event took place in the Sligo Grammar School Sports Hall on 15th March with over 180 students participating on the day. The event was open to all level of rowers with both a team event and an individual event to choose from. The event was open to all secondary schools in County Sligo. The Team Event was a 2000m row for time completed by a team of 5, the Individual event was a maximum meter row in a 5minute time cap and there was a total of 20 categories for entry.
The atmosphere in the hall was electric as students cheered on their fellow rowers. There were 11 lanes in the individual events with waves starting every 10mins, while at the same time the team events were running on the opposite side of the hall with 5 lanes and waves going every 15minutes. This made it a thrilling event to watch, with non-stop action. In particular the U16 Girls Team event saw a very unusual result for rowing with a draw for first place for Mercy College Team 1 and Colaiste Muire Team 4 who both completed the 2000ms in exactly 7.16.3.
Indoor rowing is a tough physical sport but it is an extremely inclusive sport which allows students of all ability levels to take part. There was a good uptake on the Inclusive category which saw Corran College, Summerhill College, St. Joseph’s and St. Cecilia’s schools represented across the individual and team events.
Rory Mahon of Corran College commented “Our students from Corran College had a brilliant day at the schools rowing blitz and we had both our inclusive children and mainstream attending the event. Everyone really enjoyed the atmosphere and the buzz around the whole event, every one of them got involved and encouraged and supported each other throughout the whole day which was really impressive to see”
Summerhill College’s Inclusive Boys Team took home the top prize in the Inclusive Row Boys Team event with a time of 8.47 for the 2000ms. St. Joseph’s Senior Team 3 took home the top prize for the Inclusive Mixed team event and the Individual Boys’ and Girls’ categories saw James Healy of Corran College and Eireann Hutton of St. Celica’s take top spot with impressive rows of 960m and 841m respectively.
Theresa Kilgannon Sports Development Officer with Sligo Sport and Recreation Partnership stated “Through the Schools Rowing programme SSRP has supported 7 schools by providing them access to indoor rowing machines for use in the build up to the event and Sligo Rowing Club has provided coaches to schools to work on technique. The Blitz has offered students an opportunity to try a different sport, get more active and some have even gone onto join the Rowing Club, which is a fantastic outcome”
Winners in each category received a winning a pennant to display in their schools. Full results list can be viewed below.
For further information on schools rowing programmes contact
Theresa Kilgannon – theresa@sligosportandrecreation.ie / 086 0716829 / 071 9161511
