HOLLINGWORTH Lake rowers picked up two gold, one silver and three bronze medals at the National Championships at the National Watersports Centre in Nottingham last weekend.

On Friday, 13-year-old junior Jess Leyden won the semi-final of the Women’s Junior 14 single sculls event by a massive 20 seconds to progress straight to the final on Saturday.

In the final she extended her lead to 28 seconds to take the gold medal in magnificent style leaving the opposition in her wake. It was a wonderful feat by Jess, who looks set for a golden future in rowing.

Next up was the Women’s Junior double scull in which Rachel Flanders was teamed up with an Agecroft athlete. At 17, Rachel had been the youngest person to row the Atlantic in 2007. This was a very different race, in the semi-final they kept close to the leaders Nottingham, finishing second by two seconds yet feeling comfortable.

The final on the Sunday was more difficult, Notingham and Henley both got off to a fast start and led by a couple of lengths by the 500m mark.

Rachel and Olivia held on through the middle 1,000 then put in a huge effort over the last 500 but were unable to make up the deficit and claimed the bronze medal. A valiant effort considering they had only been training together for two weeks.

Stuart Sykes was competing in the men’s junior single sculls and the men’s junior double with an athlete from Evesham.

In the singles, Stuart won his heat to go straight to the final by some seven seconds. The final was a close race and he battled very hard with a sculler from Leicester who just took the gold by a small margin, Stuart taking silver.

In the double sculls Stuart and his partner were dominant through the three races, winning by margins of 12 seconds, six seconds and then the final by four seconds to take the gold medal.

As a consequence of these wins, Stuart has been selected to represent England in the Home Internationals as the junior single and double sculler against Scotland Wales and Ireland. The event is at Nottingham today.

Also competing was junior 16 sculler Andy Jepson who won through the time trials, won his semi-final and came fifth in the final.

Lucy Walczak, rowing as Molsey, won a bronze medal in open womens single sculls and came fourth in the Under 23 womens sculls. Craig Morgan rowing in an Agecroft eight also won a bronze medal.

All in all a very encouraging performance from a little club based on a lake nestled in the Pennines.