Thanks to Mike Hnatiw from Cardiff Bay Water Activity Centre for the following blog from the Welsh Indoor Champs that Mike organised.

The seventeenth Welsh Indoor Rowing Championships attracted an excellent entry of well over 400 individual competitors and nearly 30 teams which battled it out over eight hours of competition to become crowned Welsh Champions.

It all kicked off with the Men's Fresher event, which is for 1st year rowers in University and which boasted the highest number of participants with 75 doing battle over four heats. Matt Smith from Cardiff University lead home Anthony Dakin from Swansea University in a time of 6:40.5, with Cardiff University Lorenzo Giacci picking up the third place medal.

Jack Thomas, led a clean sweep of the medals for Cardiff University in the Men's Under 23 lightweight category in a time of 6:37.9 from his two colleagues Jack Notley and Sam Vatvani, while in the same race Luis Amallobieta, from Spain made the visit back to Cardiff again this year to take the Men's Lightweight 30+ category very convincingly, in a time of 6:48.9 from Joe White and Pete Johns. Race 5, Men's Under 23 achieved the fastest time of the day for Josh Bugajski, Cardiff University, who won in a fantastic time of 5:56.9 title, with his University colleague Sam Whittaker in second and Matthew Hnatiw from Cardiff City RC in third. Josh also lowered his welsh record in this category, held from last year. Race 5 also brought together the first medallists for Women in the Under 23 Lightweight classification and Rebecca Andrews from Swansea University took the honours from Aberystwyth's RC Rebecca Ansell and Swansea's Jenni Pearson. The sixth race saw three categories being contested, with Craig Petersen going one better than last year to secure gold in the Men's 30+ with an excellent time of 6:06.5 from Rhodri Jones and Michal Szatkowski. In a battle of lightweights Dennison Gould, Taff Attack Racing took the honours in 6:43.6 in the 40+ category and Huw Carrick from local club Cardiff City RC lead home the Open category in 6:45.4

The next few races saw heats of the second largest category 47 competitors in total for the Women's Fresher category. Cardiff University again took the first two medals with Giv Barrett leading home Olivia Witt in a time of 7:55.6, with Swansea's Kathy Larcombe preventing a clean sweep in third. In Women's Open Sarah Faull, Newham College, Cambridge made the long cross country trip worthwhile in a time of 7:32.4, while the Under 23 title and quickest female time of the day went to Cardiff University's Beccy Girling in a time of 7:09.6 from last year's winner Helen Roberts with Hannah Mansfield collecting the bronze medal. The last category in this race saw long distance travellers from Jersey RC, Vicky Bruce-Miller hold off Barbara Taylor from Spain in the 30+ category in a time of 7:50.3, with local athlete Bethan Davies from Llandaff RC in third. Race 10 brought together Men's 50+, with Paul Turner, New College Durham taking gold in 6:43.4 from Andrew Townsend and Robin Sweet, while Jamie Evans Aberdyfi RC took the Under 18 title from Hereford youngsters Stephen Griffiths and Laurence Osborne. Sam Bannister back again from his success last year from Gordon's Sch in Surrey took the J17 title in 6:35.7 from local Penarth RC youngsters, Julien Birkholz and Lloyd Phillips, with the J16 title going narrowly to Penarth RC Sam Laity in 6:54.1 from Freddie Dewey and Henry Jones. Race 12, saw 10 categories being contested with Men's 50+ Lightweight category being the largest in numbers and James Howard, Sub 7 IRC, being comfortably in front in a time of 6:41.3, from Keith Hiley and Andy Robinson. Men's 60+ lightweight was a tighter affair and Thomas Yule, from Newbury took gold in 7:09.8 from Paul Roberts and John Exley. Laura Clement, Llandaff RC took the Women's Open Lightweight title in a time of 8:20.7, with Lisa Morgan from Derby taking the 30+ lightweight medal in 8:26.1 and Joanna Allsebrook, Sub 7 IRC in the fastest lightweight Women's time of the day of 8:03.6 taking the 40+ title, Suzanne Briggs, Wallingford took the 50+ title in 8:35.2, and Cardiff City RC's Glenys Rugman the 60+ title in 8:49.6. Marjorie Roome Sub 7 IRC took the Women's 60+ category in a new British Record of 7:46.4, but the achievement of Ann Yates, representing Cancer Research and back on the machine racing again from illness to take the 50+ category was one of the highlights of the day, for the appreciative audience. Race 13 brought together the Men's 40+ and 70+ categories, and there wasn't much surprise to see Evgenii Trofimov from Marine Technical University, St Petersburg, Russia winning in 6:10.1, the third quickest time of the day, with Warren Matthews and Jeff Gay collecting the other coloured medals. The 70+ medals saw an equally convincing Michael Wrenn from Sub 7 IRC lead the field home in 7:19.9 from Steven Hill and Allan Buchanan. A special mention must be made for Charles Morley who at 81 was the oldest competitor in the race, and will have his own category of 80+ to race in next year. Race 14 saw Anna Diamond from Birmingham take the Women's 40+ category in the tightest finish of the day over the 2k distance from Megan Brown. This race saw three different leaders but a 1:54.8 split in the last 500 secured Anna the title by 0.9 sec in a time of 7:40.0, with another fast finish by Josie Hunsdon taking the bronze medal. The Women's J16 title was taken in a very good time of 7:58.9 by Hereford RC's Charlotte Hodgkins-Bryne from Laura Morris and Francesca Ford with the J17 title being won by Leonor Worssam from Cardiff & Vale Schools Rowing Academy, from Natalya Sage and Laura Bell. And so to the last 2k individual race of the day, and still running to timetable the Men's Open and Men's 60+ Category. Marcus Sherwood from Chichester put in a commanding performance to take the older category title in a time of 7:04.2 from Robin Corser and Christopher Friend, while the Open race lived up to all expectations again with three different leaders of the race and the eventual winner Ollie Osbourne from the Royal Navy not taking the lead till the last 500 metres with a finishing split of 1:31.1 to take the title in 6:14.9, from fast finishing Peter Robinson, who just managed to edge out mid race leader Eddie Ventress by 0.2 sec, in fact less than 2 seconds covered 2nd to 5th in this finale.

It was good to see entries in the adaptive categories, especially Britain's Paralympics' athlete Samantha Scowen taking the Women's TA title from Laura Swetman and Shaun Swetman taking the male equivalent in the same race.

Although the Welsh Schools Indoor Championships was held the previous day, well over 60 youngsters battled it out for the junior categories from 11 to 15 years old, which gave the seniors a little rest bite before the 500 metre sprints, and the eagerly awaited Brains sponsored University Indoor Boat Race between Cardiff and Swansea University. And the crowd certainly weren't disappointed, the atmosphere reached fever point as first the Women's Boat Race consisting of eight athletes from each University row together with their combined effort being added together into just two boats on the giant screen. Cardiff's girls narrowly won this race over 8k, but the tables were reversed in the Men's race, giving each University success in this new venture between the colleges.

Although there weren't many age categories in the sprints nearly fifty individuals ripped into the machines with the quickest time of the day going to Sean Dickinson from Durham in a time of 1:18.1. In taking the open title, while Evgenil Trofimov, from St Petersburg Russia took the 40+ sprint in a time marginally slower of 1:19.0 The quickest lady was Emily Doherty from Llandaff in 1:44.8 in the Open category and the quickest lightweight over the sprint distance was Luis Amallobieta from Spain in a time of 1:29.1. And so finally to the team events were nearly 40 teams battled it out for the honours in the 3 events. Jon Goodall took time off from the microphone and managed to find himself in alongside his teammates, Sergey & Evgenii, from last year together with bronze medallist Matthew Hnatiw from the Under 23 event, and gave a power demonstration of team rowing in a time of 7:59.3 quicker than last year's winning time and giving an average split of 1:19 for the 3k race. Llandaff RC took the silver medal ahead of Swansea University. Llandaff RC went one better in the Women's race but only just beat a fast finishing Swansea University team by 0.3 of a second in 10:45.4, while Llandaff RC took 1st and 2nd in the mixed team event, in a time of 9:44.1 with Aberystwyth RC taking the bronze medal.

So after eight hours of racing on the second day, the hall was returned to normal, the competitors some with medals ventured outside to make the long journey home. Another fantastic day of racing on time, a real credit to the organisers and competitors alike who helped achieve this. Special thanks to the men on the microphones, Nigel Mayglothling and Jon Goodall, who's enthusiasm is always appreciated by both the competitors and spectators alike, and the staff of Cardiff Harbour Authority Water Activity Centre, and particularly Simon Larkin from Concept2 who never seems to get flustered despite all the stress around him keeping the race system flowing smoothly and being able to tweet as the races continued.