Get Going, Get Rowing - North East Regional Schools Indoor Rowing Final
Keen young rowers were put through their paces at the inaugural 'Get Going, Get Rowing' North East Regional Schools Indoor Rowing Final, held at Maiden Castle, Durham University on 2 March 2010. Heats had been held across the region since September with over 1200 pupils from 96 schools across different age groups taking part. The 192 finalists - 48 from each county (County Durham, Tees Valley, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland) competed on indoor rowing machines wired up to project their performances live on screen. The event is a result of a partnership that has been established between the Competition Managers, British Rowing, SUNEE (Sport Universities North East England), Concept 2, the Tony Blair Sports Foundation and the North East Strategic Health Authority. The competition was a great success and was attended by Gill Prescott who recently won 2 Golds and 1 Silver Medal at the 2010 English Indoor Rowing Championships and is top of the world rankings for her age in all three distances - 500m, 1000m and 2000m.
Matthew O'Donnell (Year 7), and Isaac McNally (Year 9) from St. Leonard's and Marcus McQuillan (Year 11) from Durham Johnston all posted impressive distances/times to win their respective categories and bring some Gold Medals to County Durham. The Year 7 2010m Relay Team consisting of Charlotte Siddoway, Sarah Baillie, Matthew O'Donnell (St. Leonard's), Liam Whitfield, Ryan Yeadon, Libbi Moon (Hermitage) and Kurt Dilks (Wellfield)also won Gold for County Durham in a superb time of 8:45.9. Maybe Gill needs to look over her shoulder!
Thanks to generous sponsorship from Northumbrian Water, three Durham Johnston pupils: Flora Jardine, Charlie Leask and Marcus McQuillan will be now joining other pupils from Northumberland and Tyne & Wear who are off to represent the North East in the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships (or NJIRC) on Tuesday 16 March, 2010 at Battersea, London. We wish them every success!
See the Northern Echo report here: http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/local/durham/5038121.Hopefuls_take_on_rowing_challenge/
Visit the Tony Blair Sports Foundation website for further news and photos: http://www.tonyblairsportsfoundation.org/sports/news-entry/North-East-Schools-Get-Rowing
See the full results here