A group of 43 athletes attended the National Indoor Championships at the University Limerick Sports Arena, where they competed against 100s of clubs from all over Ireland.

They competed in three events throughout the day, 2000m or set time, 500m and 2000m relay.

For the year 9 group that attended this was their first taste at indoor rowing racing. Callum O’Hare came 13th in the J14 4-minute race the fastest out of ERBC’s group of years 9’s pulling an impressive 1046m.

Also in this event was ERBC’s fastest rower in this event Rory Keogh placing seventh, pulling 1073m.

In the WJ14 4-minute race Niamh Cassidy placed second with a distance of 1063m which is a very strong score for a rower of this age category.

Fastest year 9 girl in this category was Niamh Byrne pulling 919m which is a good score for her first time at this event.

There was MJ15 500m top 10 finishes for John O’Kane (7th) and Oran Harty (10th) in an extremely tough field.

In the WJ15 500M, there was a bronze medal for Laura Turner who also earlier in the day competed in the WJ15 five minute race where she won gold. Laura showed true grit in both races to come away with medals in both events.

Niamh Cassidy won her second medal of the day in the WJ14 500m where she again placed second just beating fellow club rower Olivia Jordan who took third place in an exciting neck and neck race. Cathy Fallis also placed into the top 10 in this event, showing the depth of talented athletes at the club.

Zoe Elliott, the oldest athlete from the club who attended the event showed great maturity in her racing which led to her placing fifth in the WJ16 2000m race with a 10 second improvement from the start of the month.

Later in the day she then competed in the WJ16 500m where she placed second behind a strong Tullaghan Bay opposition by a small margin of 1.4 seconds.

The relay teams all produced great results but the standout team who won gold was the WTY2 team (ERBC A) made up of Niamh Cassidy, Olivia Jordan, Cait Little and Sophie Stewart.