Start of season welcome for Junior Rowing Academy

The new season begins this week for our Junior Academy athletes and to celebrate the arrival of our new Lead Junior Coach, Rob, and to welcome the latest intake of our juniors into the Junior Academy programme, our junior parents organised and ran a BBQ, raffle and fun regatta for the juniors.

Rob outlined the forthcoming season to the juniors and parents and it was an opportunity for the existing and new juniors to meet both each other and Rob properly, for the new parents to visit the Stourton boathouse and for the juniors to enjoy some close fun racing!

Finally it was the ideal moment to unveil the newest addition to the fleet, a 75kg coxed quad for the Junior Rowing Academy. Our thanks go to Janousek for their excellent work on the boat and special thanks to the Rowing Foundation who generously provided a grant to enable us to part fund the purchase.

The Leeds Junior Rowing Academy is a pilot programme focused on talent inclusion - finding potential talent from areas of social and economic deprivation and also from communities who would not normally engage in rowing, and through a combination of rowing coaching plus additional lifestyle support, help to transform these juniors into high performance athletes.