Bronze at World Rowing Championships for Ruth Walczak

Ruth Walczak won bronze at the Senior World Rowing Championships in South Korea

Rochdale rower, Ruth Walczak bagged bronze last weekend at her first Senior World Rowing Championships on Lake Tangeum in South Korea.

Ruth, from Healey, Rochdale, is the first female from Hollingworth Lake Rowing Club to represent Great Britain at a Senior World Championships and also the first to win a medal.

Ruth raced in the lightweight single sculls event, and produced an exciting final sprint to overtake 2011 World Champion, Fabiana Beltrame of Brazil to clinch the bronze.

This was her first season in the Senior GB Team after progressing through the development ranks at the Under 23 World Championships and European Championships. Ruth was placed fourth at three races this season in the lightweight single sculls in the three World Cup regattas in Sydney, Windsor and Lucerne, and so finishing with a World Championships medal was a fairytale finish to the season.

"It's been fourth, fourth, fourth all season and it is so good to get a medal finally", said a clearly delighted Ruth. “I knew that I’d had a really good training camp in Breisach in Germany before the Worlds and so I came to Korea really excited and determined to end the season on a high.”

Ruth went out fast in the final and had a strong lead with 300m gone. "After that I just tried to settle into a pace I knew I could hold", said the Rochdale sculler who had already shown that she could produce a fast finish when she won the semi-final. As the middle of the race unfurled, Walczak remained unflappable and stuck to the task.

Ahead of her the Austrian and Greek contestants swapped the lead twice and Walczak slipped back to fourth behind Fabiana Beltrame of Brazil, with 350m to go Walczak wound the pace back up and moved past Beltrame to take bronze.

"I tried to treat this like every other race and not let the occasion get to me", said Walczak. "So when I was coming onto the medal raft I had to remind myself that this was the Senior Worlds and I'd got a medal. It was a brilliant feeling".

Ruth, who learnt to row at Hollingworth Lake Rowing Club as a junior, is looking forward to coming home to Rochdale for a well earned two weeks of rest and recovery before returning back to training with the GB Rowing Team at the national training centre near Reading. “I will try to enjoy my medal and my time off and let my body recover a little, but I’m also keen to get back to training as there is still so much more I want to achieve.”