The Rowing Ireland Grand League regatta series gets underway at the National Rowing Centre in Cork next Sunday 11th April. This is the first event, hosted by Skibbereen Rowing Club, in a series of six nationwide regattas (see full details below) which take place between now and August.
Rowing Ireland spokesperson, Pat McInerney explained, “Next weekend’s event has attracted an impressive entry. Numbers have exceeded expectations with over a hundred crews signed up to compete in the senior categories alone with an entry level of over 500 crews in total. The end plan is for some of the Grand League regattas to run over two days but it will take this year to learn how best to run them.”
“Queens University are the in-form club following some impressive results over the winter season and, with two crews entered in the Men's Senior Eights, they’ll compete against a strong composite crew from University Limerick/Castleconnell. The Men's Senior Four will be contested by Garda BC, St.Michaels, Galway RC, Shandon RC and Shandon BC.”
All boats will be racing for league points in their individual boat classes. Rowers will also be competing for best overall junior and senior teams in men’s and women’s categories. A further title on offer at the end of the season is for best overall club. A new feature of the Grand League is the combining of grades to increase participation levels in races.
Crews will be combined into two major divisions. The first division will feature Seniors, Intermediates, Under 23 and experienced juniors. The second division will include Novice adults and juniors. There will also be racing for under 14 and 15 to encourage a greater participation in single and quad sculling outside of the league scoring system. It is planned to pilot a skills and drills based competition for under fourteens later in the season with a view to introducing it to regattas next year.
Pat McInerney continued, “The league has been designed to encourage participation as well as performance. It is attractive to rowers at the entry level as they’ll be competing against crews close to their own speed. All races will be timed initially and then ranked for the finals. Crews will get to row twice, once in the timed heat and again in the ranked finals. The league is also designed to encourage performance in small boats. A single scull or a pair can score the same number of points as an eight if they win their race. This will encourage clubs to target the single or pair events with their top athletes in each grade.”
Rowing Ireland CEO, Martin Corcoran stated that “a key part of our last strategic review was to expand rowing over a four year cycle through strong clubs, backed with good regattas and competition”. “I believe the new Grand League series will greatly contribute to this process''
The University Championships and the Rowing Ireland Schools regatta takes place at the same venue on Saturday 10th April from 9 am.
The Grand League series consists of the following events:
11April Skibbereen Regatta National Rowing Centre
24 April Queens Regatta Castlewellan, Co Down
22 May Cork Regatta National Rowing Centre
22 June Dublin Metropolitan Regatta Blessington Co Wicklow
7Aug Limerick Regatta O'Briens Bridge, Shannon
22 Aug Monkstown Regatta National Rowing Centre
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