LOCAL ROWERS BEAT PERSONAL BESTS AND MEDAL IN LONDON

Local high school rowers won four gold, three silver and two bronze medals while achieving nine personal bests in indoor rowing competitions held in London and St. Catharines on the weekend.

In London, Simcoe Composite rowers struck gold with Kelsea Parker wining the Junior Midweight Women event in a time of 8:21.8, Liam Ardiel the Junior Lightweight Men’s event with a time of 7:32.8 and JJ Ferrier with a personal best time of 7:17.5 in the Senior Midweight Men’s event. Chaundra Monorome and Tyler Wilson also from SCS captured silver medals with personal best times of 8:10.1 and 7:20.4.

 Hannah Andersen from Port Dover Composite captured a gold medal in the Senior Heavy Women’s event with a personal best time of 8:06.3. Other PDCS rowers winning medals included Samy Fairley who won silver in the Senior Lightweight event with a time of 8:40.4 as well as Kate McMillan and Marcus Snow who won bronze in the Junior Lightweight Women and Junior Lightweight Men events. Scott Fairley of Port Dover and Mike Veltri of Holy Trinity achieved personal best times in the Junior Lightweight Men and Senior Lightweight Men events.

 Although narrowly finishing out of the medals, Terry Lovegrove of SCS achieved a significant milestone by breaking the seven minute barrier to place fourth in the Senior Heavy Men event with a personal best time of 6:58.6.

 In the Rudernkrieg Indoor Rowing Competition held in St. Catharines, Robbie Puddy of Simcoe Composite placed fifth with a personal best time of 6:30.1 while Ian Edwards of Holy Trinity placed 13^th with a time of 6:46.1. Although out of the medals, both came away with coveted Rudernkrieg T-shirts given to those placing in the top end of a very competitive category.

 According to Coach Sue Fairley, “This weekend our athletes experienced what they can achieve by following a structured land based training program. Our focus on personal bests provides them a marker of accomplishment. There was some disappointment in the faces of those who medaled but didn’t get that personal best. That’s good. It shows their priority is on the personal best and not the medal. I know that will only motivate them more in their training leading up to the Ontario Championships.”

 Next weekend, novice high school rowers will be competing in St. Catharines at the Dennis Morris Sprints.

Picture: Back row: Kelsea Parker, Terry Lovegrove, Tyler Wilson, Samy Fairley, Mike Veltri, Chaundra Monorome, Hannah Anderson

Front row: Marcus Snow, Liam Ardiel, Scott Fairley and JJ Ferrier