adminTakudzwa Chitsiga Sports Reporter
PETERHOUSE school rowers took time to honour their 2012 rowing captain, Michael Johnson, who was lost at sea in February during the world record attempt for the fastest Atlantic rowing crossing.
The teams wore black armbands at the 2016 edition of the South African Schools Rowing Championships at the Roodeplaat Dam outside of Pretoria held recently.
The team went on to do well with rowing sensation Holly Bicknell from Peterhouse Girls School making a clean sweep of three gold medals in the girls’ Under-14 event.
Bicknell won the Under-14 girls singles sculling event, the doubles event with her partner Emma Kuipers and then she anchored the squad to yet another gold medal.
The squad consisted of Bicknell, Kuipers, Jade O’Donovan, Victoria Wood and Siobhan Jones.
Peterhouse rowers also managed to make a number of other ‘A’ and ‘B’ finals in the annual regatta which is the pinnacle of the schools rowing scene.
The event had 54 schools competing, with 1357 athletes in total, making this the largest rowing regatta in Africa.
Four top rowing schools – Arundel, Chisipite, Peterhouse and St George’s College – travelled to South Africa to compete in this prestigious event.
The top boys rowing school in South Africa, St Benedict’s, were surprised by the challenges presented by the boys from Peterhouse and St George’s College.
In the same way the top girls rowing school, St Mary’s, were made to sit up and take notice of the Zimbabweans.
The Zimbabweans won gold through the Chisipite partnership of Lorryn Bass and Ashleigh Craig in the girls Under-15 doubles event.
Bass also won a silver medal in the Under-15 single scull race as Erin Soper and her partner Tarryn Hinde won a silver medal in the girls under-14 double.
Hinde went on to win a bronze medal in the singles race, the race in which Bicknell won gold.
Bronze medals were also won by the St George’s duo of Stuart Duncan and Darragh van Aswegan in the Open Boys double.
And not to be outdone by their Saints seniors, the doubles combination of Daniel Leipe and Joshua Mukandi also won a bronze medal in the boys under-15 event.
And there were very nearly more medals for the Zimbabweans as the quad crew from St George’s of Stuart Duncan, Darragh van Aswegan, Bradley Leipe, Paul Zwanikken and Allan Mayer came in a very credible fourth position in the boys Open event to crews from very large rowing teams.
The Saints boys managed to get the better of top rowing schools, St Benedict’s, St Alban’s, Grey high School and Somerset College representatives.
In addition Stuart Duncan also came in fourth in the boys Open singles sculling event.
This year saw a huge improvement over years past for Zimbabwe rowing. And then there were various crews and individuals from all four schools rowing to personal best times in various races.
Online Reporter