Oar-inspiring win for Lea Rowing Club

Lea Juniors go for gold at the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships

Lea Rowing Club proved you don’t need water to make a splash by coming joint first in the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships, held at Lee Valley Athletics Centre on Friday 23 March.

The NJIRC is the highlight of the indoor rowing calendar for many schools throughout the country.Nearly 2500 youngsters and more than 300 schools, colleges and rowing clubs battled for rowing supremacy in a series of individual heats and relays, contested on rowing machines.

In the individual events, Kate Dampster won the Gold Medal in the year 13 female category, while in the year 12 female category, Maddy Badcott triumphed with a winning time of 7:25.2 minutes over 2000m.

Lea won the 6780 metres relay (the same distance as the Oxford and Cambridge boat race) in the female category with a time of 21:58.4 minutes, beating their nearest rival by a full 200 metres. Rowers from both universities were at the championships to support and inspire the young contestants.

Overall Lea Rowing Club were joint winners with Abingdon School from Oxfordshire.

But as only one prize was on offer for 10 rowers and their coach to attend and follow the Oxford and Cambridge boat race on Saturday 7 April, the two winners decided to toss a coin to see who would get to go. Although Lea Rowing Club won the toss, they very sportingly gave the prize to Abingdon as the Hackney club had a training camp on the day of the race.

The NJIRC is organised by London Youth Rowing, a sports initiative that works with schools and clubs in London, aiming to make fitness and rowing accessible to young people from all backgrounds across the capital.

The Lea Rowing Club junior section is run by London Youth Rowing, a sports initiative that aims to makerowing accessible to young people from all backgrounds.  Matt Rostron, managing director of LYR, paid tribute to Lea’s hard-working rowers.

He said: “It’s a huge commitment on their behalf. Some of them train five times a week. They do early morning sessions where they start at around 7am, and a lot of them have to travel down to the Lea as well.”

London Youth Rowing have organised the Championships since 2007, and want to make indoor rowing a sport in its own right.

Matt Rostron said: “It’s always going to be difficult to give a lot of young people access to the water whenever they want it. About 95 percent of the 4500 young people we work with every year only do indoor rowing. That’s why we set about doing this. It’s to encourage people who just want to do indoor rowing to compete and have some fun.”