Skibbereen rower Lauren wins silver medal with Ireland

THEY’LL need a bigger trophy cabinet in Skibbereen Rowing Club at this rate.

In the last few weeks the club’s athletes have been lighting it up on the big stages – and Lauren McCarthy-Steele can now add her name to a long and illustrious list of Skibb rowers who have won international medals in recent weeks.

While the Olympic success of gold medallists Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy is well known, as is the brilliant bronze won by Emily Hegarty at the Games in Tokyo, what’s encouraging is that the next generation of Skibbereen rowers is also making a name for themselves.

In July Finn O’Reilly (18) won a superb silver medal at the World Rowing U23 Championships in the Czech Republic, as part of the Irish coxed men’s four crew. Finn’s medal kick-started a magical few weeks for Skibbereen Rowing Club – and now Lauren McCarthy-Steele has kept the momentum going.

Lauren is part of the Irish women’s quad – along with Giselle Coulter (Belfast Boat Club), Caoimhe O’Sullivan (Muckross Rowing Club) and Anna Keating (Shannon Rowing Club) – that won a silver medal at the 2021 Coupe de la Jeunesse in Linz Austria last weekend.

This talented quartet beat crews from The Netherlands, Poland, Hungary and Austria to claim an excellent silver medal, with the French crew going on to win the event.

Lauren, Giselle, Caoimhe and Anna then finished fourth in the A final of the Junior Women’s Quad on Sunday afternoon. This was a great result for the young crew on their international debut.

Flying the Skibbereen Rowing Club flag on the international stage this week is Oisin Boyle who is competing at the 2021 World Rowing Junior Championships that are taking place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

It’s encouraging to see Skibb’s young guns show their talents on the European and World stages, and that augurs well for the future.