VL Trophy win at Scottish Indoors
On the 17th of November, the Club travelled down to Glasgow for the 2018 Scottish Rowing Indoor Championships. The pressure was on to perform at a high standard, after a highly successful event last year, and this was certainly achieved as 2018 became another year of a record club performance at indoors. We had over 35 novice and senior athletes competing at the event, where the Senior squads have raced in a number of events across the country this semester but SRIC was the debut event for our novice squads. The novices competed in a 1km race, and the seniors in a 2km as well as a team relay.
The novice women’s squad performed well, with six of the girls competing in the event. Kirstin Wilson took the fastest time of the squad, placing 23rd in the category. The novice men also performed to a high level, with Tom Woods placing the highest out of the group at 13th. The day of racing was incredibly useful for the novices, giving them an idea of the standard of novice rowing across Scotland, particularly as they competed against Scottish University Clubs.
For the senior rowers it was an impressive performance across both squads, with the women and men winning medals across a number of events. For the men, the day of success began with Aidan Graham winning silver in the J18 category. Monty Jones then went onto win Gold in the men’s lightweight category – another fantastic achievement for a new addition to the squad this year. The success of our lightweight rowers was furthered by our senior women’s captain, Morgan Hartley, who also won gold in the women’s lightweight category. Later on, the men and women competed in their respective student team relays. The senior men demonstrated the strength and solidarity of the squad, where two teams medalled, winning gold and bronze. For the women, a similarly impressive level of racing took place in the relays, where one of our teams won the bronze.
Overall, the day of indoor racing was incredibly invaluable to all of our squads; providing the novices with a taster of what is to come in the year and continuing to add to the wealth of experience for the seniors. It was particularly exciting to see that 9 of our senior athletes got PBs for the 2km event. A total of 6 medals were won, and this evident breadth and depth of the Club was mirrored in the presentation of the Victor Ludorum Trophy to the Club – crowing UStABC as the most successful Club of the event this year.
