Schools Regatta

Apr 21, 2024

The schools regatta was held in the same venue as the Limerick regatta, the day before. The club had left the boats tied to the trailer but the competitors had come home, so everyone was up again to leave for O'Briens Bridge at 5:30 that morning, to compete against 53 other schools from all across Ireland.

This was a very successful day for the club, beginning with a win for the women's J16 8 in the first race of the day.
In the notoriously difficult Mens U23 category, the CIRC crews ranked as follows:
- 8 : 5th of 9 crews entered.
- Coxed Quad: 4th and 5th of 7 entrants.
- Coxless Quad: 5th of 11 entrants
- 3 CIRC coxless pairs took 3rd, 4th and 5th place, among 7 entries.
- Coxed pair: 8th overall, beating 11 other crews.
- And Alex Bogue and Frank O'Brien's times ranked 10th and 11th, respectively, among 26 single scullers.
In every one of these races, CIRC were the fastest Galway crews, finising ahead of their CRCC and/or St. Josephs counterparts.

Similarly, in the Mens J16 category, Jes finished:
- 5th of 8 8 crews
- 7th and 8th of 21 coxed quads
- 11th, 12th, 13th of 22 doubles
The Jes J16s were also the fastest Galway crews in every category, apart from single sculls (for which there were no CIRC entrants).

This trend did not extend completely to CIRC's MJ14 crews, as both Jes Octs came 2nd to very strong St Josephs crews. However CIRC dominated the coxed quads, besting 3 St Josephs, 3 CRCC, and 3 other crews.
The J14 boys did not enter the double or single-scull events.

Our womens' crews also made the club proud, finishing:
- 3rd out of 5 U23 8s
- 1st and 2nd out of U23 pairs
- 5th and 6th out of 16 U23 single scullers
- 1st out of 2 J16 8s
- 2nd and 3rd out of 16 J16 coxed quads
- 4th, 5th, and 6th out of 26 J16 doubles
- 5th, 6th, and 7th out of 12 J14 quads

CIRC women didn't compete in the U23s coxless quads or doubles, the J16 singles, or the J14 doubles or singles. But the girls out-performed the boys by being the fastest Galway crews in every single event they entered and by taking home twice as many medals.

All in all, the clubs Gold Medal tally for the day was as follows:
- MJ14 4x
- WU23 2-
- WJ16 8

But in the schools regatta, wins are not the only thing that matter. Points are awarded to each school for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places (3 points for 1st place, 2 for 2nd place, and 1 for 3rd place). The results for the day are tallied. This year's winner of Best School was Methodist college, a co-ed grammar school in Belfast, who won 6 events (MJ16 8 , MJ16 4X , MJ16 1X, WU23 4-, WU23 4X-, WJ16 4X ) and earned a total of 32 points.
In joint 2nd place, with 21 points each, were Colaiste Iognaid and Castletroy College.
Other schools from our locality were St Josephs (13), Colaiste na Coiribe (12), and Salerno (5).

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