News & Press archive for June, 2009

The Lea RC Juniors decided on Thursday evening that it was too hot in the club gym so they brought out all the equipment to the field that surrounds the club to do circuits OUTDOORS!!!  Though it took a while to get all the equipment from the 1^st floor gym, through the boatshed and then out the field (that was almost a work out on its own!) we eventually got all but three of the bases set up.  With the addition of lots of water bottles and a washing up bowl filled with water both to help cool the juniors they got underway.  Three circuits of 17 exercises with each exercise being completed for one minute, its hard work but everything was completed with effort and enthusiasm.  California has Muscle Beach but Hackney has the Lea RC Junior Circuits!

Places for the LYR summer course at Barn Elms boathouse, Wandsworth, flew off the shelves and are now SOLD OUT!!

There are still a few remaining places at our Newham and Hackney centres so get in there quick.

Tom Aggar, Advisory Board member and LYR hero added another Gold medal to his cache at the Paralympic World Cup Regatta last weekend.

Tom Aggar celebrates victory

WorldRowing.Com describes the victory: ‘Paralympic champion, Tom Aggar of Great Britain must have been taking it relatively easy when he raced for lanes yesterday. Although Aggar won, he did not dominate. Today Aggar broke away from the rest of the field by the half way point and proceeded to widen the gap as he stormed towards the finish line. Perhaps the surprise second place was adaptive newcomer, Andrew Houghton of Great Britain. Houghton, 28, is racing for the first time internationally and finished in second ahead of Andrii Kryvchun of Ukraine. In yesterday’s race for lanes Kryvchun had beaten Houghton, but today the better finish by Houghton gave him the silver medal place. Kryvchun is also new to adaptive rowing and has made a positive start to his first season.’

In all the GB squad dominated the event and brought home 3 gold and a silver medal.  See WorldRowing.Com for pictures and further stories.

Barristers Chambers 7 Bedford Row hosted a charity rowing event on 17 June and for one night their conference suite became an indoor rowing arena with 6 teams: one from 7BR and the rest teams from nearby solicitors firms Wedlake Bell (who fielded 3 teams), Bristows and Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge.

The format was 6 members per team (4 male, 2 female) each rowing in relay for one minute each 6 times – a total of 36 minutes of intense rowing for everyone involved. Bristows took an early and what proved to be unassailable lead and gold medal position.

Everyone had a great time and stayed on for refreshments afterwards to recover and share experiences.. £1200 was raised for LYR, each team paying £200 for their machine, and separate donations were made to the Spinal Injuries Association (currently totalling £445).

Peter Rouse, organiser of the event said “this is the second time we have worked with LYR in this way and I hope this will become an annual event for barristers chambers and solicitors firms in the Bedford Row area”.

Jack Robinson, Community Coach with LYR said: ‘It was great fun.  It’s not every day you get the chance to make lawyers and barristers sweat!  Thanks to all involved.’

On a very wet Wednesday the London Youth Rowing van made its way to Henley upon Thames for the performance squads first training session on the famous stretch of river for 2009.

Both the junior 4x that were planning on racing at Metropolitan Regatta were in action as well as a multitude of singles.  After the first two sessions in the wet, the girls fashioned themselves some designer bin liner dresses to keep the rain off for the third and final session. Some hard work from all involved in far from perfect conditions. Well done!

The sun shone on the LYG on water rowing event which took place this weekend at the London Regatta Centre, Newham.

Boroughs were out in force with ten participating. London Borough of Richmond performed consistently well, although faced strong competition from both Greenwich and Lambeth.

Overall Results

1. Richmond

2. Greenwich

3. Lambeth

The indoor rowing competition for London Youth Games will take place on 5th July at Crystal Palace. For more information on London Youth Games, click here to visit their website.

London Youth held the Launch of their Getting Ready for the Games initiative. 80 young people from over 10 clubs across central and East of London came to the Score Centre in Leyton to celebrate the launch of ‘getting ready’  and to try out various sports including rowing, parkour, boxing and cricket. Getting ready is looking at getting over 60 clubs to become more sport orientated with events, competitions and taster sessions in their clubs as well as a summer programme. Every young person at the event was given a wrist band with our web site address on and invited through their clubs to attend this year’s Summer Rowing Course and possibly acquire indoor rowing machines for their clubs. Hopefully lots of them will jump on board!

London Youth Games (LYG) On Water Regatta is set to have representation from 16 boroughs this year, a 100% increase on 2008. The Regatta will take place on Saturday 13th June at the London Regatta Centre in Newham.

LYG Indoor Rowing Event will take place on the 5th July this year and is in line to have all 33 London boroughs participating!

Watch this space for the results of the Regatta this weekend!

Highlights of the National Schools Regatta were Jordan Cole-Hossain and Jessica Robinson winning a bonze medal in the Junior 16 Women’s Double Scull (J16W 2x) on the Saturday and Jordan Winning the Junior 16 Women’s Single Scull (J16W 1x) on the Sunday.

The double produced a solid time during the Processional Race that put them in the top six, they then went on to secure a solid 3rd place in the third 500m, with a solid push. They finished with the sixth fastest time from the two semi-finals. The plan was to attack harder at the start of the race which they did and this allowed them to hold onto and eventually break the opposition to secure the Bronze. This was an excellent achievement as both athletes have only been training intensively since September.

Jordan showed true courage in the single  finishing in the middle of the field of those qualifying from the Processional Race.   After a slow start that had her lagging behind off the start, she bounced back strongly in the middle of her race to move into 3rd place and though a competitor fought back hard, she maintained 3rd to get into the final.  In the final the plan was again to  attack hard and try and maintain contact with the favourite for the 1st 500m.  She did this for the 1st 250m which put her in a strong position and was constantly attacking to attempt to move into 2nd.  Though she didn’t achieve this the performance was outstanding.

Wallingford – May 3rd.

The Junior Women’s Quad scull a composite crew from three of our centres finished with a strong first place finish in the Heats to secure them a favourable lane in the final.  Unfortunately the wind turned and they were faced with a strong cross wind off the start. It was an excellent effort after a bad start to secure them a 2nd place.