Athlone oarsman wins national title

Sean Quigley of Athlone Boat Club struck gold at the Irish Indoor Rowing Championships last weekend when he won the national Junior 18 title, the first ever indoor success for the club. This year the championships were held at the Trinity College Dublin Sports Centre and attracted a massive entry of 378 competitors across all the grades from junior to masters. With forty ergometers in use and a giant screen for spectators, the competition created a fantastic atmosphere throughout the day. Each competitor had to race over a distance of 2,000 metres and whoever recorded the fastest time was declared the winner in each category. Sean Quigley achieved an excellent time of 6 minutes 42 seconds to win the junior 18 event by a clear nine seconds in this very competitive grade and took home the gold medal for Athlone Boat Club. This was a very well deserved win for the young Athlone oarsman and a just reward for all his hard work in training. Worthy of a mention also was the performance of two former Athlone oarsmen, Colin Barrett and Michael Heavey. Rowing for UCD, Colin picked up gold in the Under-23 LWT event, whilst Mick, wearing the Commercial colours, was pipped by just 0.1 of a second in the Masters class but got the silver medal in a time that put many of the younger competitors to shame! National Trials At the national trials in Newry, Kevin Molloy maintained his good form following his recent win at Castleconnell. His ergometer test on Saturday qualified him for the sculling trials on Sunday and he did really well to come home ninth out of nearly sixty other hopefuls. Kevin last rowed for Ireland in 2010 when he was just sixteen and he has once again put himself in contention for further honours by his selection to attend the next trials in February.