Finbar Manning has won the David O'Connor vet sportsperson of the year.
He began rowing with his local rowing club, St. Michael's, whilst in second year in Ardscoil Ris in Limerick. He had a certain amount of success as a junior rower in St. Michael's including four national championships and he also represented Ireland at the European championships twice. These achievments were enough to earn him a sports scholarship when he applied to do veterinary medicine and he has been receiving this scholarship for the past three years as well.
Since joining UCD boat club his rowing ability has progressed further than he previously could have imagined under the guidance of our very influential coach, Pat Mc Donagh, who himself has competed in two Olympics as a rower and one Winter Olympics in the bobsleigh. A great deal of his and the clubs success has come in the last year. They enjoyed victories at several local and foreign regattas but their most significant win came at Henley Royal Regatta last July in the Prince Albert Challenge Cup beating Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard along the way. Henley Regatta is the biggest rowing event in the world and UCD has not won here since 1973.
A year later they are in the process of going for a consecutive Henley win in the Visitors Challenge Cup which is a higher standard event. They come into the event as National University champions and they also won our colours race against Trinity which took place on St. Patricks day this year. They are also in a very strong position to win the national senior 8s championship of Ireland which too has not been achieved by UCD since the early 70's.
On top of club and crew successes it is enormously satisfying to earn individual recognition as a rower. A few weeks ago at the UCD sports awards night he was presented with the overall sportsperson of the year award. On the same evening he received the David O' Connor Memorial Medal for the Veterinary Sportsperson of the year, both of which he was very proud. It was especially nice to be rewarded by the vet college as rowing is a sport which demands so much of ones time (twice a day training, seven days a week, all year round) that it is pleasing to be recognised for that effort and he is very thankful to the vet college for this award.