ROWING Hundreds of rowers gather in Cork this weekend to launch Rowing Irelands new season

New competition format finally gets underway at National Rowing Centre at Farran Wood, Inniscara.

Hundreds of rowers are expected in Cork this weekend as Rowing Irelands new national head of the river competition format finally gets underway following a number of cancellations due to poor weather conditions.

The new format involves a series of time trial Head of the River races at the National Rowing Centre in Cork. Skibbereen Rowing Club are the host club organizing the races.

Rowing Ireland Coach Development Officer, Pat McInerney explained, The new racing format involves single sculls, double sculls and pairs all in separate races for both men and women. The event will also host a race for all grades and boat classes outside of the national event to broaden the appeal to all rowers.

The single scullers for the national event are drawn from clubs across the country and involve separate time trial races in mens, womens and junior categories.

There will still be a good race off for the senior and junior titles for men and women with the host club, Skibbereen, providing some strong contenders.
In the womens race there are forty boats led off by Carrick on Shannons Dympna Kelly and Sheila Clavin from St. Michaels. The host club Skibbereen has a strong womens entry of four scullers also.

The seniors are followed by a strong field of intermediate and junior scullers.

The mens race has an impressive entry of one hundred and twenty boats. They will be led off by Sean Jacob of Old Collegians, a former international heavyweight sculler who will be followed by Richard Coakley (Skibbereen Rowing Club) who was part of the Olympic team in 2008.

There will be an interesting re-run in the mens sculls race with some of the contenders from last weekends national trail racing taking part. Sean Jacob (Old Collegians) won that race by a mere three seconds from Skibbereens Mark ODonovan. However the local man will be eager to reverse the outcome on home waters.

Others challenging for the top senior spot will be reigning intermediate champion, Peter Hanily (St Michaels Rowing Club, Limerick) and the very promising junior and current novice champion, Turlough Hughes (Kings Hospital School). Reigning junior champion Paul ODonovan of Skibbereen should also feature strongly.

Skibbereen Club PRO, Violet Hayes, is delighted with the strong entry and finally expects good weather this weekend following two cancellations in October and November.

In the doubles Head there will be strong challenges from current under 23 team members Niall Kenny of NUIG and Peter Hanily of St Michaels going off first ahead of a strong club field behind them. In the womens race the current National Senior champions from Limerick face off the Intermediate champions from Derry.

The National Head race series continues witha fours race in Limerick on Feb 6th and an eights race in Galway on March 27th next. Through the summer months there will be a series of Grand League regattas at six major venues around the country, north and south. The new competition calendar also has two National Championship regattas, one in July and one in September.