Western region team perform well at the JIRR

On Saturday 18th April a team of juniors travelled to Nottingham to represent the West Region at the Junior Inter-Regional Championships. The West team was made up of juniors from Exeter, Kingsley School, Dart Totnes and Plymouth Rowing Clubs, who were selected at the Regional Time Trials in January. The competing crews represented the West against teams from eleven other ARA regions from around the country.

The juniors faced typically tough conditions on the Nottingham course, with each crew racing in heats, and then progressing onto either the ‘A’ or ‘B’ final.

Standout performance of the day came from the Dart Totnes J16 2x of Meyrick Tooley and James Lovering, who progressed to the ‘A’ final from their heat, and went on to pick up a bronze medal, just missing out on silver in a tight finish. This was only the region’s second ever medal in the seven years the event has been running, so an excellent result.

In fact the medal tally could have been higher, but unfortunately injuries prevented the region’s two other main medal hopes, the J14 2x from Dart Totnes and J16 1x from Exeter, from taking part.

All the other juniors taking part progressed to ‘B’ finals, where there were some other good results, including a first place (seventh overall) in the WJ15 single for Alice Jackson of Kingsley School, second places (eight overall) for the Plymouth J15 quad and the Dart Totnes WJ15 quad, and third places (ninth overall) for the Exeter WJ14 quad, and Dart Totnes WJ15 quad.

Report from Tom Pattichis, CDO Western Region