News & Press

I’ve just finished two weeks of London Youth Rowing summer courses. The first was an intermediate course at Thames, and the second a week volunteer coaching at the Lea. Fresh from a weekend of racing at St Neots Regatta, with no time to break, I, and many other Lea rowers, arrived ready and raring to attack the tide of the Thames – but also a little apprehensive about rowing at such an important club. But we were very warmly welcomed and quickly realized that we were all just members of the same LYR team. After some initial difficulties getting into the boats, the new J18 Lea girls quad were away, and owning the waters of the Thames. Our technique dramatically improved throughout the week, predominantly because the only way to stay dry was to start tapping down (a part of the stroke often lost at the Lea owing to its serene, almost stagnant waterway). By the end of the week we had cemented our roles within the quad, and become a proper racing unit – all with the help from the coaches putting us right in at the deep-end (literally) with extreme taps, 100s of metres of square-blade rowing and Paddy taking the risky decision to put me in singles to race on the last day…..unfortunately I think the only prize I’d get is for the loudest, and most unnecessary screams . The intermediate course was great for building on our pre-existing knowledge, and challenging us to surpass the coaches’ expectations. And for us, the experience on other waters was invaluable for future racing.

Then for me a quick role reversal: after a week of intense training, I was now in the position of volunteer coach and ready to work with all the prospective rowers down at Lea. I was on the Lea Summer course last year, and I would not hesitate to use myself as testament to how successful and worthwhile the courses actually are. Within a year, I have gone from never-rowed-before-in-her-life, to Lea performance squad. After the course, I caught the bug, and with professional coaching from the Lea team have continued rowing to get where I am today, racing and hungry for wins next season. Last week was one of the most fulfilling I think I’ve ever had. The amount of pride you feel when a crew takes the perfect stroke, or just feels confident enough to attempt one is indescribable. When the younger crew quad I was working with at the time begged me to let them row up again past a group of the oldest boys to ‘show off’ their near perfect technique, I was spilling over with pride. Hearing and reading on the wall now, that so many kids we worked with want to join clubs, or at the least want to come back next year for another round is great, and really makes me feel like time well spent. So good luck for the last week to all, and hopefully we’ll see a few of your fresh new faces at the start of training in September!!!

Rosie, Lea RC Junior

I hope you will all put your hands together and congratulate everyone who competed at the British Championships over the weekend. Good effort all round but a couple of performances deserve special mention. Firstly to the girls in the Junior Women’s Quad Scull (Jordan Cole-Hossain – Stroke, Lottie Hudson – 3 seat, Rebecca Eno – 2 seat and Phoebe Fisher in the bow seat). Though they had a little incident off the start with a pesky buoy they recovered quickly and spent the first 1000m working alongside the Scottish selected crew, they proved to much for the scots though and broke them in the middle of the race, pushing onto win comfortably. Well Done girls and for being selected to represent England this weekend at the Home International Regatta. Another mention should go to Paul and Jordan who with outstanding performances in there heats saw them avoid the Re-percharge and go straight to the final in there singles races. However doubling up is always tough and with only a couple of hours between there singles races and the quad races, they finished a close 4th for Paul (last couple of strokes it could have been the bronze) and 5th for Jordan. Really well done guys.

Other performances include

J17 Single Scull - Dimeji in his first ever 2k race may have come last in his heat but his time would have achieved a first or 2nd in any of the 3 other heats. 

J16 Single Scull – Tomas Simonds-Gooding finished 4th in his Semi-Final a good improvement on last year

WJ18 Double Scull – Rebecca Eno and Phoebe Fisher were knocked out in the re-percharge, The heat was there best race to date.

Open Junior Quadruple Scull – Demiji Ogonyoye, Liam Downes, Tom S-G and Paul Jones were also knocked out in the Re-percharge but was great to see them come off the water being proud of there performance.

It is not only the juniors from London Youth Rowing who get to go and compete in races, the coaches do too! One of our coaches, Steve Salter, had a great weekend at the British Rowing Championships on the 18^th July, competing for his club,  London Rowing Club. Steve competed in 3 events, the Open 8, Open Lightweight Coxless 4 and the Open Lightweight Pair and managed to walk away as the British Champion in all 3 events. The most important of these events by far was the pairs race, in which Steve and his partner managed to overhaul the crew who had been leading for all of the race in the last 50 metres to win the race by 0.56 seconds, the importance of this win was that it means that Steve and his partner have been selected to represent England in the Home International Regatta in Cork, Ireland on the 24^th July.

A week after Henley Royal Regatta, the championship course is used for Henley Masters regatta. It is an international regatta with crews aged between 27 and 87+ competing on this very beautiful stretch of the Thames. Our development officer, Penny Cuthbert,  took part in several races over the weekend and won the coveted Women ‘D’ Eights race. It was a tight race between Lea Rowing club and a composite crew of women from Walbrook and Weymouth. Lea won by a length and a half. Several of her crew members are lifelong rowers, one actually raced in the first ever Olympics for women at Montreal back in 70’s. Penny only started rowing when her own kids started and has been enjoying the sport ever since.

Coxing the boat was none other than Yaz Kone, 16, who started rowing 4 years ago through her school at Lea Rowing Club on a London Youth Rowing initiative. She has recently been concentrating on her studies so has taken to coxing the women’s squad quite regularly and brilliantly steered the crew to their win.

LYR cameras caught the action this week at Houses of Parliament where some of our young rowers were invited to compete in the All Party Parliamentary Regatta.

Young rowers from Thames Rowing Club (RC), Globe RC, Royal Docks RC and Lea RC made up the crews which were named Apples and Pears. This was in reference to the Black Rod steps they all had to climb to join the Lords for Tea on their terrace after racing.

The 4th July kicked off with the Adaptive Indoor event.

They came, they rowed, they conquered!

This is the view of all staff, spectators and participants who were on hand to witness the inaugural LYG Indoor Adaptive Event held at Crystal Palace this year.  Six boroughs were invited to participate on Sunday 5th July as a pilot, with plans to extend the competition to twelve boroughs in the second year. Spectators and volunteers on hand were treated to a dazzling array of performances from a determined group of athletes who wanted to show what they were made of – and that they did!

“The event gave young people an opportunity to compete in a great arena, in front of a supportive crowd, which is a wonderful experience to boast about!”

Each borough was set a series of four challenges to complete, which would have contributed points towards their total score, before taking part in the finals at Crystal Palace. Coming in to the finals, Lewisham had a slight lead on Hackney with Bexley sitting in third. However, after a series of gut wrenching performances by all the athletes present, Hackney was able to overtake Lewisham in the latter stages and seal victory to become the Balfour Beatty 2010 London Youth Games Adaptive Indoor Rowing Champions!

Tom Aggar, the reigning Paralympic and World Champion in the ASM single scull boat class, was on hand to present the medals to the winning athletes and even he was surprised to see the level of enthusiasm and effort displayed by both the athletes, the spectators and indeed the volunteers who were on hand to make sure that the event was a success. He hopes to be back next year and so do we with an even bigger and better competition for 2011.

The adaptive indoor event was followed by the mainstream event.

Fantastic! That is the only word that comes to mind when trying to describe this year’s Balfour Beatty LY Games Indoor Rowing Championships (Mainstream). The event was held at Crystal Palace after the inaugural Adaptive Indoor Rowing Championships which was piloted for the first time this year.

The event was managed by LYR who ran a series of indoor races dotted with a few celebrity challenges featuring Mr. Anthony Kendall, the Chairman of London Youth Games, Group Managing Director of Balfour Beatty Brian Osbourne, DJ Abrantee from Choice FM, England and Arsenal Ladies’ Footballer Rachel Yankey, Olympic Alpine skiers Chemmy Alcott and Dougie Crawford. Christine Ohuruguru was also in attenace to lend her support.

It was a keenly contested event with 27 out of the 33 London boroughs competing in what is now known as the show piece event for the entire Games. It was a closely fought battle but eventual champions Havering were able to hold off strong challenges from Richmond and City of London who claimed silver and bronze respectively.

Special thanks must go to Concept 2, who along with LYR handled the technical elements of the production but the games would not have been a success if it wasn’t for all the volunteers who gave of their time and effort to make sure that the event was sensational. We look forward to seeing them and you again next year for an even bigger and better LY Games Indoor Rowing Competition.

10 students from Pendragon School spent days completing a set of four different indoor rowing challenges for the London Youth Games Indoor Rowing Adaptive event, being trialled this year.

The challenges provided a different set of activites ranging from a team effort of rowing the distance of the Thames boat race course to individual attempts to pull a consistent split time. Jo Rowe, a dedicated PE teacher, was excited to be asked to find a team to compete for Lewisham this year.

Congratulations to Jo and the students for a terrific effort to get as many points in the challenges in preparation for Finals Day on Sunday 4^th which was held at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre last weekend.

Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham and Bexley also joined in the challenges, but team Lewisham secured the maximum points in the build up.

Steph Ware, LYR Community Coach

On the hottest weekend so far this year, more than a dozen young people a came down to the Lea RC to take up the challenge of rowing on the water for the first time.

The participants were aged between 13 and 17. They had all had rowed on machines in the past, making up a good part of Barnet’s indoor rowing squad for the London Youth Games.

The on water session lasted three hours. During this time, all the learners had the chance to try rowing on a sliding ergo, a tub 2x and a tub 4x+.

All the participants had a great time and said they learned a lot from the day.

Many of them are  now thinking of taking rowing further and were very interesting in the details of the LYR summer courses.

Much thanks must go to the TSG officers that gave up their time to help coach and organise the day.

Dan Cooper, Lea RC Head Coach

Some of Lea Juniors' winners show off their medals

Two weeks after their  Spring Regatta, the Lea RC Junior Section found another fistful of medals when they  travelled to Dorney Lake, Eton to compete in the Ball Cup.

The day before the race many of the athletes stayed behind at the club after they had finished their training to help out on the Saturday afternoon coaching on the Learn To Row course.  After that, all hands were on deck to de-rig four singles, three doubles and a coxed quad and load the necessary equipment onto the trailer.

After an early start on the Sunday morning (5:30am at the Club!) the trailer left for Dorney followed by 13 athletes and a convoy of parents. Still, many hands make light work and this was proven by how well the day ran.

Special thanks has to go to all the parents and junior athletes that helped throughout ; the day really sped along and all of the racing athletes received fantastic support.

Our  rowers really excelled at the Ball Cup. Seven of the 10 Lea Juniors boats made it through to the finals and the eighth missed out by the width of a bow ball .

In the end,  Lea RC Junior Section left Dorney with two gold medals courtesy of Ellie Booth (WJ13 1x) and Dan McAteer (J13 1x) and three silvers; Neil Connell (J15 1x), Katie Jessop and Elizabeth Johnson (WJ14 2x) and Dan McAteer and Harrison Skinner (J13 2x).

This event proved that the hard work that these and many other athletes at the Lea RC have put in over the last year is really starting to pay off.

Everyone agreed afterwards that it been a grand day out!

Dan Cooper

Winning Thames Juniors celebrate a job well done.

The 24th of April marked the beginning of the 2010 regatta season, and the first of many opportunities for the junior squad. It’s also the first chance for  those long cold months invested in winter training to be finally put to the test.

Entering nine events in junior and senior categories over a 1400m course, the competitors often doubling or tripling up, the announcer repeated the sentence “And it’s another win for Thames” over the loudspeaker numerous times.

Out of the 9 events entered, ranging from Intermediate 3 singles to women’s Junior quads, 6 of them brought home the first pots of the summer,as well as the first punches in the British rowing cards.

As the remaining crews rowed into Thames under a beautiful summer evening’s sunset, and as the last few races saw the final pots of the day being collected by the Thames scullers, there was a general sensation of  relief and a job well done amongst scullers and coaches.

All in all a very good start to the season– with many more successful events to follow I am sure.

Paul Jones