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 Maidenhead Rowing Club achieved some remarkable results at the British Indoor Rowing Championships (BIRC) at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham on Sunday 22nd November. The BIRC is the largest indoor rowing championships in the world and the largest indoor participatory sports event in the UK, with over 2000 competitors.
The outstanding performance of the day came from Maidenhead's Jack Beaumont. Rowing over 2000m in the J16 event, Jack rowed away from the field of 72 competitors to win gold by the huge margin of 10 seconds in a time of 6 min 15.3seconds, smashing the championship record that has stood since 1995 by four seconds in the process. Rowing the day after his 16th birthday, Jack's time would have been fast enough to win silver in the J18 event. Jack is also the reigning J15 Single Sculls National Champion.
Maidenhead RC's Andy Houghton also won a gold medal in the Men's Adaptive (arms only) category, completing the 1000m distance in a new championship record time of 3 minutes 55.1 seconds.
Ally Brooks, until recently a junior at Maidenhead RC and now a student at Reading University, also won gold in the Women's Student Lightweight event, completing 2000m in 7 min 31.7seconds.
A large contingent of girls from Maidenhead also entered the WJ13 event, rowed over 3 minutes. Out of a huge field of 116 competitors, Maddy Dobson came an excellent 7th with 757m, Charley Higgs was 28th with 713m, Hannah Woffinden was 31st with 710m, Grace Poynter 37th with 706m, Ella Mutch 64th with 670m, Gaby Cowdery was 95th with 640m and Charlotte Gibson 104th with 618m.
In the WJ14 event (4 minutes) out of an even bigger field of 122, Caitlin Richards was 51st with 940m.
Results were equally good in the junior team events. These were raced in teams of four with each rower completing 750m. Emily Beaumont, racing in a Maidenhead/Ross/Newbury RC composite WJ14 team won gold, two seconds ahead of Stratford-upon-Avon.
In the WJ13 team event, the Maidenhead team of Maddy Dobson, Hannah Woffinden, Charley Higgs and Grace Poynter won a silver medal behind Trentham BC.
 All the Maidenhead Junior Medallists  Jack Beaumont - J16 Gold Medallist
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