The Columba College Rowing Club held a 'breakfast fundraiser' on the weekend. Guest of honour was Olympic and World Champion rower, Mr Eric Murray.

On Sunday 8th March the Columba College Rowing Club had the pleasure of hosting and listening to double Olympic and world champion rower Eric Murray whilst eating a yummy breakfast. Eric came down especially to help us fundraise for new equipment and the morning was a sellout success.

We listened to an inspiring speech with plenty of messages not for us as rowers but for anyone interested in what it takes to compete. We loved Eric’s competitive attitude and that he didn’t allow himself to be intimidated by his competition, that’s why he and his crew mate Hamish Bond went unbeaten for an unprecedented 8 years!

Mrs Duthie also spoke and set a challenge for the club to race an eight for the Jubilee Cup within the next five years, we accepted the challenge! Then to our teacher-in-charge, Mrs Sinclair, she told us some of the history behind rowing at Columba and showed some old photos of those that had rowed before us, one photo from 1994 coincidentally included the mother of one of our current squad!

After breakfast the guests all made their way to the rowing shed for a boat naming ceremony in honour of Nadia Wright and Ann Parker, two people who have contributed a great deal to Columba Rowing over the years, it was great to have them share this special weekend with us.

We were also very privileged to have Eric spend time with us on the water during our Saturday morning training session, amazing to be able to say we trained with one of the greatest rowers in history!