Writes Shane O'Sullivan (Club PRO)
On Saturday 24 September Passage West Rowing Club held an end of season awards ceremony to recognise and celebrate the hard work and commitment shown by club members throughout the past season.
This is the first time that the club has held an event of this kind and it turned out to be a popular one, gathering more than 100 attendees. The evening took place at Rochestown Park Hotel kicking off with a table quiz which created a fun and light atmosphere. Afterwards, food was served, followed by the awards ceremony, and a DJ played late into the evening.
Awards were presented for the following categories: Male Senior Rower of the Year, Female Senior Rower of the Year, Male Junior Rower of the Year, Female Junior Rower of the Year, Male Most Improved Junior Rower of the Year, Female Most Improved Junior Rower of the Year, Male Most Improved Senior Rower of the Year and Female Most Improved Senior Rower of the Year
The award winners were carefully chosen by a Captain’s Committee Panel and were solely based on merit.
“An event of this nature is a fantastic way of showing our appreciation of the commitment and dedication that our members show towards the club, and while there cannot be an award for everybody, we would like to congratulate each member for making the club what it is today”.
Passage West Rowing Club were very successful in the recent All-Ireland Coastal Rowing Championships that was held in Schull, Co. Cork on the 14th & 15th August. They finished the weekend with 4 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze sets of medals which put them in second place behind Whitegate Rowing Club for club of the championships, Ring Rowing Club were a close third.
While they had some great results in various categories, the highlight of the weekend was winning the Senior Ladies and Senior Men races; it had been 31 years since Passage West won the Senior Men category, and they had never won the Senior Ladies category up to this point. Their Veteren Men were also among the gold medallists with Passage West winning this category for the third year in a row! The fourth gold medal for the club was in the Master’s Women’s category which was made up of a Passage West/Whitegate/Rushbrooke composite crew.
Passage West RC also travelled to Wicklow earlier this month to compete in All-Ireland Offshore Championships. They finished the weekend with a set of bronze medals in the U18 quad, and silver in the men’s open quad with Passage West teaming up with Wicklow RC to form a composite crew. Offshore rowing is relatively new in Passage West with the club purchasing its first quad in 2020, since then the fleet has grown to two quads, two doubles, and a couple of privately owned singles.
Although the official rowing season has ended, the focus for Passage West RC is now on the Irish Provinces Indoor Rowing Championships in November. With intentions of bringing most of their underage rowers to the competition, coaches have developed a twelve week training programme that will test their abilities and hopefully give them their best chance at doing well.