ROWING Rowing Irelands new season national Heads of the River format resumes in Limerick this weekend with its inaugural National Fours Head

Its another first for St Michaels Rowing Club in Limerick as they host the inaugural Rowing Ireland National Fours Head of the River race in OBriens Bridge this Saturday 6thFebruary.

Rowing crews drawn from clubs across the country (including Northern Ireland) will descend on OBriens Bridge, Limerick for this inaugural race which is a new event on the Rowing Ireland calendar.

The OBriens Bridge course is a favorite with rowers because of the calm stretch of water it offers. St Michaels have been running their own traditional head of the river race here for twenty eight years.

The Head chairman Kieran Kerr, who is also an international rowing umpire, said today, We are hoping for fair weather for the event. Club captain Sid Daly and his team have put a lot of work into preparations which is the first major rowing event here of the new season. St. Michaels, the host club, will have former World Champion Sam Lynch as part of their senior quad scull and will be hoping for a number one slot when all the times are in.

National Head of the River races are time trials with senior boats going off first and then working down through all the grades to under-fourteen quad sculls. The race caters for men and women in fours and quads at all levels, under 14, 16, 18, novice, intermediate and senior.

The traditional heads offers racing for all types of boats and can sometimes result in the best rowers not racing each other as they could be in an eight, a four or a single.

In the fours head everyone must compete in a four person boat so we get to see all participants in the same competition.
Other boat categories will be on offer throughout the day and time trial competition gets underway at 9 am and runs until 4 pm.

The main National fours races are on at 10.30 am and 2 pm.

Information

Pat McInerney, Coach Development Officer 087 969 5093
Martin Corcoran CEO 087 687 6738