MANY students will be looking to back up excellent performances from last week's state championships when Lake Barrington hosts the North-West schools rowing regatta this weekend.
Launceston Grammar produced many of the stand-out performances a week ago, especially through Henry Youl and Oli Cook and several of the women's under-19 crews.
The Grammar girls had an extremely close tussle with Friends in the the under-19 championship race and both crews will again be trying to assert their dominance.
Scotch Oakburn and Fahan have not been far off the pace while Guildford Young and St Marys both have some excellent rowers.
The stand out junior rower in Tasmania is Eleni Kalimnios, of Friends, who has dominated junior sculling at local and national level for two years and will be using this regatta as part of final preparations for the national championships in Sydney from March 18.
The popularity of rowing at junior level is evident with close to 150 rowers in each age category evenly split between boys and girls.
Para-rowers are also catered for with Marist College's blind sculler Emma Jago's excellent technique making her a formidable force in Ulverstone boats.
Due to the popularity of rowing and support from the Australian Sports Commission through the clubs in schools program, there are a number of new schools competing.
New schools include Queechy, Sheffield, Taroona and Kingston highs, Elizabeth College, Landsdowne Crescent Primary and St Aloysius.
