News

Posted: July 14, 2015

A record 8 rowers representing Scottish Rowing will this week travel with the GB Rowing Team as part of a 50-strong squad to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, ahead of the 2015 World Rowing Under 23 Championships which are taking place from July 22-26.

Six of the eight of the Scottish contingent will be making their debuts at a world level amongst a GB Rowing Team full to the brim with senior and under 23 experience, highlighting the success of Scottish Rowing athletes and programmes in domestic competition during 2015.

20-year-old Robert Gordon University student Lewis McCue returns to the team for the third year in succession, once again stroking the men’s coxless four, whilst Edinburgh’s Melissa Wilson, fresh from making history with Cambridge University in the 2015 Boat Race, steps up from last year’s women’s eight into the coxless four this year.

The University of Edinburgh is represented by 3 athletes in the team – Henry Millar (Fivemiletown), Rufus Scholefield (Jersey) and Maddie Arlett (Selkirk) – demonstrating the outstanding progress being made under the leadership of Head of Rowing Colin Williamson.

Millar and Scholefield, both 21, are the current British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) champions in the men’s pair and are fresh from a strong recent run at Henley Royal Regatta where they set a course record in the Prince Albert Challenge Cup for student coxed fours and they take up their positions in the engine room of the GB men’s eight. They are joined in the eight by Edinburgh-born Harry Leask, 19, who recently tasted success at Henley Royal Regatta winning the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup for quadruple sculls representing Leander Club.

21-year-old Arlett, who like Scholefield only took up the sport of rowing for the first time at Edinburgh University, takes a spot in the lightweight women’s quad, a boat class which she knows well having won the elite lightweight women’s quad recently at Henley Women’s Regatta. Also in that crew was Glasgow University’s Emma McDonald, 20, who travels to Bulgaria as a spare.

The Scottish contingent is completed by Glasgow-born Rowan McKellar, 21, who will compete in the women’s pair. The Scot, representing Broxbourne Rowing Club but currently studying in the USA at the University of California, Berkeley, was part of last year’s record breaking Scotland Rowing Team which won the Home International Regatta in Cork, Ireland.

Commenting on the selections, Lee Boucher, Scottish Rowing’s High Performance Co-Ordinator, said:

“2015 is smashing all records in terms of the number of Scottish rowers involved in the GB Rowing Team at all levels from the senior team down the pathway now to the Under 23’s and we remain confident of an equally strong Scottish representation when the GB junior teams are announced later this month.

“This is as a result of the day in, day out, hard work and commitment of our rowers supported by our passionate and motivated coaches and backed by our loyal partners including sportscotland and Winning Students.

“It is particularly pleasing to see the impact of our strategic investment in University rowing programmes across Scotland, backed by equally ambitious Directors of Sport, in terms of supporting the development of rowers who can compete on a world stage.”

Lewis McCue (Robert Gordon University), Henry Millar (University of Edinburgh), Maddie Arlett (University of Edinburgh) and Emma McDonald (University of Glasgow) are all proudly supported by Winning Students, Scotland’s national sports scholarship programme supporting student athletes.

For more information please see: http://www.britishrowing.org/news/2015/july/13/squad-announced-world-u23-championships-plovdiv-bulgaria