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Welcome to the all new Dublin University Ladies Boat Club newsletter. Whether you
are alumni, current rowers, parents or friends of DULBC we hope you will enjoy read-
ing about what we have been up to over the past year and all that is in store for the
2010-11 season. We would also greatly appreciate your feedback. If there is anything
you would like to contribute to, or read about in future editions don‘t hesitate - get in
touch! Useful DULBC contact details can be found on the back page.
Victory in the Intermediate 8+ at the National
Championships was one of the highlights of
last season
marking only the
third national 8s
pennant won by the club. The crew, which
included three generations of DULBC
Captains, took an early lead and held off the
second place Portora crew to a length, both
crews comfortably ahead of UCD and NUIG.
This impressive performance by a fairly young
crew is an indication of the talent, dedication
and determina-
tion evident
t h r o u g h o u t
DULBC. It is also testament to the enormous
investment of time and effort volunteered by
all of the club‘s fantastic coaches without
whom none of the season‘s victories would
have been remotely possible.
National Champions 2010
DULBC News October 2010
Back row: Franky Sheridan, Sinead Roger, Emma Jacob, Susannah Cass, Rebecca Deasy, Caoimhe Proud-
Murphy, Andrew Coleman. Front row: Caitlin Carr Condon, Siofra Bennett, Iseult Finn, Rachel Nazarin.
Continued inside...
If I all I wanted to do was win medals I’d find something I could play on my own. The real experience comes from spending time working together as a team.
Having just entered my sixth rowing season, my third with DULBC, I can
definitely attest to the fact that real reward in rowing comes from being
part of a crew and club in which the members thrive in each others compa-
ny, and push each other to reach their potential in every aspect of life. Last
year in DULBC we learnt that we could train, and race hard but most importantly we
learnt that training and racing is easy when you are surrounded by your closest
friends and having the time of your life.
My name is Iseult Finn and I‘m the current Captain of DULBC. I am so lucky to be
Captain of such a talented group of athletes. The members of DULBC are not just
dedicated rowers but also accomplished students who in their spare time between
training, studying and socialising run one of the most vibrant and successful sports
club in Trinity. The rate of growth and development in DULBC is phenomenal. In the
last two years we have seen an explosion in our number of active members, we are
The Colours Races Caitlin Condon DULBC had an encouraging start to their season at Lagan Head of the River where the senior eight took home the prize for Fastest Women‘s Crew. Soon the focus centered on Colours where the ad-justment from endurance head racing to shorter regatta-style racing so early in the season posed a challenge for the crew. Howev-er, the girls were eager to con-front UCD on the traditional 2.3km Colours course from O‘Connell Bridge to James‘ Gate Brewery. DULBC seniors had not won on this course in seven years—they knew they had something to prove.
Colours provided the novices with their first taste of side by side racing. Although the Sally Moorehead Trophy may not have been retained this year, as the sea-son progressed, the promising novice crews soon became able to utilize their strength and gain more racing experience. This year also marked the first time that a second women‘s novice crew had the opportunity to face off against UCD in Colours. This development is a reflection of the growing popularity of women‘s rowing in Ireland. The ―Goonette‖ crew had an impressive win over UCD beating them by several lengths of open water.
The senior crew was comprised of Sarah Dolan (stroke), Iseult Finn, Susannah Cass, Caoimhe Proud-Murphy, Rebecca Deasy, Siofra Bennet, Niamh Murphy, Caitlin Condon (bow), and coxed by captain Rachel Nazarin. Although it was
a young crew, it did not lack in experience; six of the girls raced in Colours the previous year where they had recaptured the Corcoran Cup after an interminable UCD winning streak.
The senior women‘s race began in the midst of controversy. Two key UCD rowers had allegedly enrolled in part-time, 12-week, ―Adult Ed-ucation‖ courses so as to be able to produce cop-ies of UCD student cards to the race organizers as proof of enrollment. They were not eligible to row in University Championships later in the year un-
der the same credentials. Be that as it may, on the starting blocks everything was irrelevant but the race at hand. Although DULBC led off the start, the powerful UCD crew rapidly gained and then sustained a boat length lead over DULBC. However, throughout the multiple bends and bridges marking up the course, DULBC stayed with UCD and did not let them stretch their lead into open water. DULBC was calm and
collected throughout the entire race; they never doubted that they were going to win. Within the last 400m, DULBC made a powerful push and closed in on UCD. As DULBC came up even, UCD cracked under the pressure, and in a dramatic fashion their rower in the 3-seat caught a crab (missed a stoke), which dragged the UCD boat to a standstill. By the time the UCD crew had recom-posed, DULBC had passed the finish line. Trinity‘s win proved that they had the physical endurance and mental stamina to withstand the pressure of such an important race. As Liam Gorman of the Irish Times wrote: ―Trinity‘s women stole the show with a dramatic demonstration of how patience and persistence can yield big rewards.‖
Trinity retained the Corcoran Cup
Women’s Head The Senior and Inter eights flew to London five
days after the Colours races to compete in the
Women‘s Eights Head of the River Race. This race
is rowed over the grueling 7.2km reverse Oxford-
Cambridge Boat Race course. The Inter 8‘s perfor-
mance stands as a testament to DULBC‘s depth
as they finished an impressive 87th out of 300
crews after only being able to practice once in their
final line up. Due to injuries, the crew led by
Rachael O‘Byrne O‘Reilly (stroke), Naomi O‘Sulli-
van, Sinead Rodger, Catherine Taaffe, Blaire Mul-
vey, Rebecca Dowling (bow) and Claire Acton
(cox) were left two rowers short. Thankfully,
DULBC veterans: Breda Horan and Annelies
Pletsers were willing to step in as exceptional sub-
stitutes. The senior crew finished 40th and im-
proved on their performance from last year‘s Head
of the River by 20 seconds although they will be
working hard to improve this further in 2011.
DULBC would like to extend warm thanks to Trinity
Trust & Association and the Kat Miller Fund for
their valued generosity and support of our competi-
tion at international races and regattas.
Trinity take to the Thames with 300 eights for the
Carina Girvan - Novice cox 2009 - 2010 Thinking back on Colours I find myself remember-ing the events before and after the race most clear-ly. I was elated to be told that I would be coxing the ladies novice boat and quickly realised that I would be learning an awful lot in a very short space of time. Our first trip over the weir had everyone excited and trying to figure out quite how to get both boat a crew down. All was soon revealed and this began a week of intensive training for Col-ours. That week I lost all focus in my studies listen-ing to coxing audios and on my bike rehearsing the race start when the lights turned green. On the wa-ter each day the crew developed into a cohesive boat whilst my own obsession with learning and improving as a cox was beginning to leave me sleep deprived and dreaming of 20 stroke piec-es. However with a day off tired bodies and minds
had an opportunity to recover. The morning of the race arrived. Tension was in the air around the novices but with the success of the novice B boat in the morning race above the weir, our spirits were raised and we began to focus on our task ahead. Arriving on the stake boat and waiting for UCD the noise from supporters above echoed off the walls and the tension in the boat rose. After giv-ing reminders of what the coaches had told us all I asked the crew to close their eyes and focus on their breathing, taking three steady and controlled collective boat breaths. Soon enough we were called to attention and on the 'g' of 'go' we were gone. Throughout the race we hung off the stern of UCD, making small gains only to be pushed away. The pain on the face of each girl in the boat could only rivalled by the look of determination on the next stroke. At the end of the race the sense of loss was palpable. Although we lost the race that day we gained a sense of focus and strong determination to train harder and more effectively than we had before.... after a fantastic night out!
Henley Women’s Regatta Sinead Rodger Having trained hard all season, on 17th June,
DULBC‘s Senior crew boarded a plane bound for
London, and the much anticipated Henley Wom-
en‘s Regatta. We were apprehensive but eager to
see how we would fare against other crews from
outside Ireland.
With racing not starting until Saturday, we
had the opportunity to get some training in on the
course on Friday. This proved to be invaluable as
we had the chance to train with the Drexel crew,
who went on to win the Elite 8 event. We learned a
lot about our racing abilities in this session and
were ready to put it to practice in racing the follow-
ing day. That evening all crews were invited to an
evening in the Rowing Museum where we sported
our matching outfits and had a chance to see the
lineage of the sport to which we devote so much
time. After much enjoyment we returned home for
an early night before the big race the next day.
We were up early Saturday morning for one
last spin boat before the race. Back in the house
we had time to relax as we waited to hear who we
would be racing: Newcastle University. We knew
that it wasn‘t long now until we would be sitting on
the start line and nerves began to set in.
We arrived at the course with our games faces
on, pumped and ready to go; rowing to the start in
our matching DULBC kit we knew we had done
everything that we could have to prepare. We were
ready to represent Trinity College Dublin. When the
umpire said the inevitable words ―Attention, Go‖
both crews exploded out of the blocks. It was New-
castle who would have the early lead but we al-
ways had them in our sights and kept fighting for it.
With 3/4 length down and 700 metres to go we
knew that we had to make our move. It was a dog
fight to the end with both crews giving everything
that they could, DULBC advancing with every
stroke. Unfortunately it was Newcastle‘s bow that
crossed the finish line first, just a canvas ahead of
DULBC. While tears were to follow, we knew that
we had given it our all, and raced at a level that we
had striven for all year.
We spent the following day at the course,
watching the racing and supporting the other Irish
crews that still remained in the competition. Once
racing had finished we had one last row on the
course before loading up the trailer to return home.
On Monday, before heading to the airport, we visit-
ed Dorney Lake, where the 2012 Olympic Games
will be held.
While DULBC were not victorious at Henley
Women‘s Regatta, we knew that we had put our-
selves in a good position for going into the National
Alison O’Keeffe - Novice 2009-10 Novice rowing was one hell of an experience. It‘s fairly safe to say that we didn‘t know what we were getting ourselves into and safer to say that we all had our lives turned upside down by the sport of rowing. But we would admit in a flash that it was an exhilarating, rewarding and intensely gratifying way to spend a whole lot of time. Isobel Wilson,
regular 2 seat in our A boat claims that ―My first year in college has been the best year of my life to date and rowing contributed enormously to the fantastic time I had‖ which sums up the attitude of the 09/10 novice crew. We were a very eager and enthusiastic bunch, with 140 sign ups and 60+ people regularly turning up to training. By January and the start of the racing season we had more than three eights worth of people willing and able to race.
Our Winter ‗training camp‘ was planned for Blessington lake but resigned to Islandbridge be-cause of the unprecedented cold weather. Those few days saw us row our way through snow fall
and icy temperatures but always with smiles our faces and the occasional boat v. boat snow-ball fight. We would start at 8 am and take an hour break mid-morning, to eat and warm up but it was a regular occurrence that an hour in the boat-house would do little or nothing to warm up cold toes and fingers. So we just had to press on. The training camp marked the start of our shift towards being ‗real‘ rowers, with longer and more frequent training in the run up towards the racing season. The hard work did nothing to hinder our high spir-
its, in fact, the harder we worked, the more we fell in love with the sport which started to occupy
our lives. I can personally say that rowing has altered my life significantly. Coming from an athletic back-ground, I was very familiar with the experience of sport, training and hard work, but the latter took on
a whole new meaning last year. But so did the words ‗friendship, ‗bonding,‘ ‗relaxation‘ and ‗rest‘! I could never have imagined the bond that is
formed between people putting there bodies on the line together and for each other. It‘s impossible not to feel something special towards someone when you‘re quite simply relying entirely on their ability to not give up, and vice versa. And as for relaxation and rest, it is so much more rewarding when you know you‘ve really earned it. Alison Walsh said she enjoyed ―The days when you‘re so tired you can only think of food and once that‘s sorted, thinking is too hard so you just don‘t.‖ I told you we were an enthusiastic bunch! But our enthu-siasm was not wasted. We progressed steadily throughout the year thanks to the exceptionally hard work of our coaches Andrew Coleman, Connla Edwards and Franky Sheridan. L a g a n Head was our first competitive endeavor and our A boat came second only to a very experienced Queens crew, which was good news to our ears.
Then came the Colours race against UCD which was a fantastic event, but unfortunately we lost out on the coveted trophy. Dublin Head followed and before we knew it University Cham-pionships was upon us. It took place on Saturday the 10th of April, and Skibereen Regatta followed on the 11th. That weekend we met with mixed fortunes, including the first medal of our group; Keira Buttanshaw won a gold with three second year novices in a coxed four, and one of the first year novice boats came second. Two other fours
raced across the weekend but illness and tech-nical difficulties kept us away from the medals. Two first year novice eights took part in each event as well, and although we raced well we fell
short of the top prizes. Nonetheless an ex-tremely enjoyable and somewhat successful weekend was had.
As the college year drew to a close, the racing season kept picking up momentum and throughout the months of May, June and July we spent our days training and our weekends racing
under the exceptional guidance of our new racing coach, Steve Lowe. The medals fi-nally started appear-ing with a win in the eight and the four at Trinity Regatta (two very important wins over UCD) and golds in the four at Athlone and Metro. With med-als come status points with 4 novices breaking status to become inters. The Queen‘s University Boatrace was another big event in the early Summer, but unfortunately the competition was too stiff on the day to clinch success. The main focus of our attention was National Champion-ships, which was to be held on the 16th of July in the National Rowing Centre in Cork. As it drew nearer, the awareness of our efforts and achieve-ments from the start of October up until that point were clear in our minds and we knew that the right race could secure for us our ultimate dream: to be National Champions. However, it was not to be. We all knew that we had raced well and although our times would have won gold on many other occasions, neither the eight nor the four could reach that elusive podium. Which only means one thing: we‘re just going to have to train harder to reach it this year!
All things considered, our year of novice rowing exceeded all kinds of expectations. But probably the most surprising and unlikely thing which happened in us all was the great at-tachment and affection that we developed for what is essentially very hard work, achieved
through the medium of enduring friendship and respect.