Posted online: Aug 3rd, 2010

Culdaff rower Laura D’Urso claimed a gold medal for the peninsula at the Irish National Rowing Championships in Cork last week.

The City of Derry boating club rower, who finished fourth at last year’s World Junior Championships, cemented her reputation as one of the

country’s top rowers by leading her ‘Facebook Eight’ team home in the

Ladies Senior Eights category.

Despite being an established Junior international Laura’s success has

been as a ‘sculler’, rowing with an oar in each hand, rather than as a

sweep rower using a single oar, and the switch between the two

disciplines is notoriously difficult.

In addition to the challenge of learning a new technique, Laura was

also part of a crew that had only rowed together the evening before

the race. The crew, dubbed the ‘Facebook Eight’ were drawn from clubs

across Ireland and only entered the race on the spur of the moment.

They were pitted against a range of club and university crews that had

been training specifically for the race for up to nine months and

devoted hundreds of hours to perfecting their technique and fitness.

In a further personal challenge, Laura was also chosen to stroke the

boat, effectively setting the pace and rhythm for the whole crew and

leading from the front. Despite these odds, the crew went into the

race with a nothing to lose attitude, as she explained.

“We knew that some of the other crews had put in a huge amount of work

together for the race, but that can bring its own pressures. Whilst we

had all been training hard all year it was in different boats and

different crews, so nothing was expected from us. It was almost a

relief to go into such a big race with no pressure from outside,” she said.

 ‘I am told that this is the first Senior Eights medal that City of

Derry have won since 1969 so it makes you realise how prized they are,

I am just delighted to have won the race, and with such a great bunch

of friends who were just determined not to lose’.

At the same event Laura’s father, Gaetano, took Silver in the Veteran

Men’s Single Scull, completing a winning weekend for the D’Urso family

and City of Derry Boating Club.