Rower Rachel should have place on statue (From Bury Times)

Rower Rachel should have place on statue

11:20am Monday 8th February 2010

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FIFTY more local people are to have their “sportraits” — pictures to those of us with an aversion to gimmicky terms — on the Spirit of Sport statue in Horwich.

A glance through the new names suggests to me that some real thought has gone in to this first update of what was conceived as a “living” work of art designed to be capable of refreshment at future intervals.

Having said that, I can only presume that there has been an unintentional oversight somewhere along the line.

Why is Rachel Flanders missing from the list?

Rachel, you might remember, was 17 and a pupil at Bolton School when she became the youngest person to row across the Atlantic in 2007/08.

She and three other women spent 74 days on a 29ft boat when they took part in the Woodvale Atlantic rowing race from La Gomera in the Canaries to Antigua.

To my mind that was a considerable sporting achievement and I think Rachel, from Heaton, deserves to be up there with the rest.

If it cannot happen at the moment, perhaps it will at the next opportunity.

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