County Durham Olympic medallist to compete at British Rowing Indoor Championships
by Owen Younger · ChronicleLiveAn Olympic medallist from County Durham is set to compete at the British Rowing Indoor Championships for the first time.
Lauren Irwin, from Peterlee, will be taking on other rowers from across the UK at the event in Birmingham.
Lauren won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics in the summer, finding major success in the women's eight event. She has since returned to the North East, visiting her old school, St Bede’s Catholic School and Byron Sixth Form College in Peterlee, speaking to students and bringing in the medal for them to see in person.
Now, Lauren's attention has turned to the British Rowing Indoor Championships, which marks a return to the style of rowing that she first became involved with. The event is returning to Birmingham’s NEC as part of FitFest on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 of December.
The weekend begins on the Saturday with the 2,000m, 500m, timed events and team relay events, which are open to people aged 11+. Over 2,000 people are expected to compete in total, with 32 different nationalities represented by those set to participate.
Last year’s competition saw three World, four British and 30 Championship records broken, with a new Super Sprint Sunday event added to this year’s schedule. This new format sees people take on short distance challenges such as the one minute sprint, 100m and 1,000m, with 100 race slots available per challenge.
Speaking ahead of the competition, Lauren said: "I am very excited to be going to my first British Rowing Indoor Championships. I will be competing in the 2,000m race and the team relay, and I think that it will be like the competitions I used to do when I was at school in Durham, but ten times bigger.
"I'm looking forward to seeing some familiar and new faces, and I feel like this will be a really good opportunity to compete against the next generation."
For anyone interested in taking part, entries for Super Sprint Sunday start at £6, and will remain open until the morning of the competition, subject to places remaining.
For more information and to secure your place visit the British Rowing website here.
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