LVS Ascot Boat Club Rowers Excel With Medal Haul In Regional Championships
06 Feb 2017
Rowers from LVS Ascot Boat Club are celebrating after a series of impressive performances at the South of England Indoor Rowing Championships on 22nd January. Six pupils returned with medals, including Gold, to emphasise the school’s ambition to inspire young people to exceed their expectations.
Success at the annual event, held in Abingdon, was spearheaded by 16-year-old Adam Oliver who won Gold in the J17 boys singles event, seeing off stiff competition from a number of pupils from Hinksey Sculling School based on the Thames in Oxford. Adam’s Gold medal was just reward for a period of great personal improvement at LVS Ascot Boat Club, which in November saw him attend national trials for the Team GB junior rowing team in Lincolnshire.
Fin Cariss, 13, was another individual medallist at the event for LVS Ascot, taking Bronze in a class of over 30 competitors in the J14 boys singles behind opposition from Chiswick and Evesham. The event again marked further evidence of improvement from Year 9 student Fin, who in October was victorious for the school in the Burway Small Boats Head.
Completing the medal winning heroics on behalf of the independent all-ability school’s boat club, who train at the Jubilee Riverside Centre in Slough, was the Year 11 relay team who beat The Langley Academy to win the J16 boys event.
It was not only LVS Ascot’s pupils who brought back medals from the championships though, with a member of staff also performing impressively to show exactly why the
school’s students are flourishing at rowing. J14 coach Tim Wallis Caddell won Silver in the coaches’ race at the event which saw hundreds of pupils from over 40 schools competing.
Head of Rowing at LVS Ascot James Skeels said: “Our improving performances have been demonstrated in spectacular fashion at this indoor event and highlight the ambition and dedication of the pupils and coaches towards achieving success now and over the course of the busy regatta season. I am delighted to see both team and individual success at the event as that is what LVS Ascot is all about – helping students flourish as individuals but also encouraging them to work as a team to exceed expectations”
LVS Ascot is catching the imagination of pupils keen to try a new sport and thrive at something they show a talent for, having held a learn-to-row course last term which was over-subscribed and produced a large group of pupils in years 7 to 9 ready for their first taste of being on the water. In January the school achieved its largest ever medal haul at the Wycliffe Small Boats Head event in Gloucestershire.
Photo: The winning LVS Ascot J16 relay team with their medals