Junior Pararowing Working Group

The past decade or more of the UK’s growth and international pre-eminence in Pararowing has been largely due to the overall growth and awareness of parasport from a negligible outset to critical mass with an inflection point with the 2012 Paralympics. But many of these drivers won’t be as prominent in the decades ahead so if the UK wants to nurture elite talent, it will have to do it the old-fashioned way.- not by plucking latent stars from obscurity, but by nurturing the talent from a young age into their prime.

This potential is already presenting itself with a surging interest by juniors in pararowing. In years gone by, the sport was dominated by adults, but now the junior numbers pretty much equal the adults. A number of junior events have been enthusiastic about welcoming adaptive and para competition accelerating awareness an interest. Unfortunately, a some of these invitations have not succeeded because an insufficient slate of pararowers registered.

The Community Adaptive Group (CAG) in the UK is a collection of grassroots club volunteers working to enhance the sport of adaptive and pararowing supported strongly by British Rowing. Its remit has expanded so much over the years that it has set up a number of focused working groups on areas such as Coastal Rowing, Rowing with Epilepsy, and Neurodiversity. To provide extra focus in the area of Junior Pararowing, the CAG is organising another working group for this area. Already, one active individual, Courtland Clarkson, father to PR3 junior Isaac Clarkson at Stratford-upon-Avon, has stepped forward to provide leadership in this area.

Area of focus include:

• Coordination – Simply providing a mutual support group for folks interested and active in this area.
• UK National Competitions – These have welcomed a Para junior events in the past, but have been hamstrung by lack of entries.  Work with them would reassure them that the group would provide a slate of at least 4 athletes. Examples include:
  • Junior Scullery
  • Junior InterRegional Regatta
  • Brit Champs
  • · Nat Schools (though they have been adamant about not adding any adaptive racing)
• Junior Para Specific Events – Increasing, adaptive events at club regattas use the time handicapping format. This approach provides the great flexibility and great opportunity for a competitive race. When one starts doing classification races, it becomes difficult to get the competitors (eg. finding a PR2 Junior Girl to go against another PR2 Junior Girl). But hopefully, this working group will facilitate Junior classification match-ups for conventional racing.
• Junior Camp – Plan a para junior camp getting the community together for a training day altogether.  Maybe tied into one of the key adaptive comps.
• International Outreach – Reach out to various international comps to see what they would require to introduce a Junior Pararowing event into their competition (eg. World Junior Rowing Championships, Coupe de la Jeunesse, Head of the Charles).

The group would not focus on cognitively impaired junior athletes (eg. Learning Disability, Autism) which make up the largest segment of UK adaptive junior rowers, but whose impairments do not qualify for a FISA “Pararowing” classification.

If you would be interested in getting involved with this working group, drop me a line at bruce_lynn@hotmail.com.