Gold and silvers for Stirling club
Last Saturday’s Scottish Indoor Rowing Championships gave the members at Stirling Rowing Club the opportunity to compete in their sport for the first time since lockdown.
In total seven members of the club entered the ‘virtual’ event which saw individuals compete online, linked through their rowing machines in garages, kitchens and home gyms.
Rowing alone takes a special sort of motivation but with support from club coaches all athletes delivered a great performance on the day.
The first competitor for Stirling was Ollie Plank in the Junior 14 1k race. This was Ollie’s first Indoor Championships and he rowed an excellent race against boys from Aberdeen and Edinburgh, pacing himself throughout to get a personal best and win silver.
The next race for the club was the Junior 16 2k race for Ruairidh Reid. Ruairidh put in a great performance, securing a PB in 6.48 and just missing out on a medal in fourth place.
The Junior 18 event had two boys and two girls from the club enter. First up were Robbie Waddell and Joshie Mathews competing in a busy field with entries from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and even Germany. The boys got off to a great start and held a strong pace. Joshie led the field early on and managed to hold on to first throughout, smashing his PB in a fantastic time of 6.24 and winning gold. Robbie also secured a personal best time for the event.
Then it was the girls’ turn, with Melissa Mcgarva and Isla Maccallum competing in the Junior 18 category. Again a reasonably busy field with some tough competition but Isla and Melissa had a strong row with Melissa overtaking other competitors to secure third place and win bronze on the day.
This was later corrected to fourth once home entries were collated. Isla had a strong row and finished overall seventh securing a PB on the day. The final competitor for Stirling was Gregor Hall, who coaches at Stirling Rowing Club. Gregor who is known for his fast sprints on the rowing machine secured a PB and had a fantastic row in the Men’s 500k sprint winning silver, narrowly missing out on gold to an Australian rower by 0.2 seconds. He set a new British Record for the event in a time of 1.23.
A spokesperson said: “Overall, the club secured one gold and two silvers which was an excellent result and demonstrates the commitment of the athletes through this pandemic who have had to keep their fitness up at home through online workouts and rowing machine training – not an easy task without the camaraderie and social interaction of fellow team mates. Some of our athletes will participate in the British Indoor Championships, again virtually next week on either 500m or team relay events. We also look forward to 2021 and hope there will be more competitions.”