The rowers spent a very hot three days at Roodeplat Dam over the weekend at the Gauteng Schools Championships.
It was very much a mid-season event and there is much work still to be done, but there has been a clear improvement in results, across all the age groups, and director of rowing, Mr Lebo Mashigo, said he is happy with the progress.
“The distances between our crews and the winners of the races have come down a lot since the beginning of the season,” he said, “and in a number of the finals we were right up with the leaders for 1000m and more, showing that, with hard work, we can be in the mix. The medals for our U14s and U16s were very pleasing.”
In all, 16 boats made finals. The U14 double (Reabetswe Mafoyane and Ben Standfest) came 3rd and the U16 eight (Somelezi Mbarulana (Cox); Yassen Whyte; Xolani Magagula; Ross Nosan; Caden Liebenberg; Peter Du Preez; Oliver Standfest; Morena Montle and Matthew Nel) came 2nd.
The results in finals were
JM16 2- 5th; JM19 2- 8th; JM14 2x 3rd; JM15 4x+ 8th; JM14 8x+ 5th; JM16 8+ 2nd; JM19 4x+ 4th, and 6th; JM19 4+ 4th; JM14 4x+ 8th; JM19 2x 7th; JM15 8x+ 5th and 8th; JM16 4x+ 5th; JM16 4+ 5th; JM191st 8+ 4th.
