The Cardiff Bay Water Activity Centre (CBWAC) based at Channel View Centre is gearing up for two days of indoor rowing competition later this week
CWBAC will host the Welsh Schools Indoor Rowing Championships for the fifth year on Friday December 2nd followed by the Welsh National Indoor Rowing Championships on Saturday December 3rd.
The schools competition is open to all schools across the UK and a record number of entries have been received. Over 700 schoolchildren aged between 11 and 18-years-old, from 20 schools across Wales and England are coming to the centre, to compete in a mixture of individually timed races over various distances. These individual races are followed by the fast and frantic team races that will engage all competitors and spectators at the event.
Cardiff Council’s sport development team Sport.Cardiff will also be attending the event and will be promoting their popular 5×60 programme which is available to schools across Cardiff. The 5×60 programme is an initiative funded by the Welsh Government which encourages children to take part in 60 minutes of physical activity five times a week.
The Welsh National Indoor Rowing Championships is an open event and last year attracted nearly 500 athletes aged between 11 and 80-years-old from across Britain. This year there will be several Russian athletes returning to the centre from St Petersburg to compete in the Saturday event and they will be joined by competitors from Spain, Ireland, Scotland and England making this a truly international competition. The event also sees the return of Graham Benton, 2006 world champion and two world record holders, Gus Mckechnie and Andy Hammond, who recently set world records during a 24 hour ultra marathon row.
The Welsh Schools Indoor Rowing Championships and the Welsh National Indoor Rowing Championships are organised by Cardiff Harbour Authority in conjunction with Concept 2 and Sport.Cardiff.
Councillor Nigel Howells, the Executive Member for Sport, Leisure and Culture said: “Both rowing and indoor rowing have become successful activities at CWBAC and the centre has become well-known for its excellent provision. It is great to see that this is now such a well established 2 day event and is growing in popularity each year with more and more interest and fantastic attendance levels. This is especially true in the year leading up to the Olympics, where we know there will be great interest in all sports where the GB team is known to excel, in particular rowing! Sport.Cardiff’s involvement in the event is vital to promote and deliver sporting activities to young people across the city.”
