Beth Barrett from Harpenden has won a £500-a-year bursary from SportsAid to improve her skills in the up-and-coming water sport of canoe polo. Her award follows a recommendation from Harpenden Village Rotary Club.

Seventeen-year-old Beth, a student at Sir John Lawes School, was a member of  the Great Britain Under-21 Ladies Canoe Polo team which competed in Essen,Germany, earlier this year in a warm-up event for the European Championships. She is now looking forward to representing Britain at the European Championships proper, also in Essen, in August.

Canoe polo is a full contact sport, involving teams of five kayaks and a goal post positioned 2 metres above the swimming pool.  Beth owes her interest in the sport to her mother who took it up seven years ago and introduced Beth and her brother Tom to it a year later.

Beth plans to put her bursary money towards the cost of a new canoe and extra training in pools in Luton and Potters Bar.

SportsAid is a charity helping the next generation of young British sportsmen and women to succeed. It has been supported by Rotary throughout the UK since 2001. At a meeting of Harpenden Village Rotary Club Beth received her first bursary cheque from Brian Billinghurst, Rotary Youth Coordinator for District 1260, which covers more than 50 clubs in Herts, Beds and Bucks.