South West Regional Indoor Rowing Championships

Over 400 pupils from across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall competed in the South West Regional Indoor Rowing Championships on Wednesday 4 March, held at the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth.

The afternoon of racing provided an opportunity for pupils across 35 schools to test themselves against their peers across the South West region. There were some fantastic performances, with all but two of the individual titles being won with scores in excess of 100% of the ARA’s Gold Medal target, and no less than seven new championship records being recorded in the process.

The individual titles were shared by a number of schools from across the region, including Kingsley School, Kings, Torquay Boys and Penryn, Poltair and Exmouth.

In the team championships it was clean sweep for Plymouth based schools, with Plymstock School winning the overall schools championship, Devonport High School for Girls and Devonport High school for Boys winning the overall male and female titles respectively, and last years overall winners Ridgeway winning the trophy for the fastest Year 7 school.

"I’m delighted that so many students came along to compete and experience a large indoor rowing event", commented Tom Pattichis, the Amateur Rowing Association’s regional coordinator, who helped to organise the event.

"Many of them have been working hard on their fitness and technique, so it is great that they can come along and test themselves against so many others. Perhaps more importantly, though, everyone had a fun afternoon, and hopefully many participants will continue with the sport."

The impressive number of entries reflects the growing popularity of indoor rowing, which provides a whole-body, low-impact workout.

The ARA is grateful to the Plymstock School Sports Partnership, the Sir John Hunt School Sport Partnership and the Plymouth Rowing Forum for their support of the championships. The event was run with help from volunteers supplied by the West Regional Rowing Council, local clubs and by Concept II.

A full list of day’s full results are available for download here