Many of you will remember Grace Bolland - who is one of our Junior Members - and raced for the Club this season until her family left the Island to live near Bath. Grace was showing great promise as a Junior Rower - and we are very please to report that she has continued with her local club.

Her mother Ruth recently gave us an update on how she is getting on - in particular at the recent British Indoor Rowing Championships. Ruth report “The venue was immense, even warming up was in front of the crowd. Effectively being there on her own, all the TV cameras for the live streaming, big crowds, rowing against all these big London based private schools and rowing clubs that have obviously done very focused training, was very daunting.
If she had managed to match her PB she would have made it in to the top 20, but
on the day was 41st out of about 94. She was really gutted.For the 500m she did get a PB, 1.49.9 mins, 9 seconds behind the winning time put her in 23rd I believe, which she was really pleased with. She’s never raced it before and only started training for it a few weeks ago, entered it for fun really. I think the whole experience, seeing the GB rowers, para-athletes etc has really given her drive for next year, and she knows what to expect so should feel more confident. Amazing venue though! but a very long day, out of the house 6am to 10pm. >Hopefully next year she’ll have some company, having inspired others to give it a try.”

Grace dis win a Silver medal at the Welsh Indoor Rowing Competition.

We will follow her progress with interest and wish her well.

Grace is on the Island over Christmas - and hopes to get in an outing back in Ryde colours