Henley crews, Marlow news

Yesterday saw Marlow regatta run in very testing conditions, with a persistently strong crosswind throughout the day.  Unfortunately this meant that the regatta could not run to time, and IM3 8+ was axed as a result, putting paid to racing in eights for the 3rd VIII and Colts A.  However, that aside it was a very good day for the club.  Two wins were had, in J15A 8+ for Junior Colts A, rounding their season off in some style, and in IM2 4- for half of Colts A, who will be strong contenders for the coxless four spot in the GB France match.  The VIII raced very well in reaching the final of Senior VIIIs, where they were very  much in the race with some top class university and club crews.  With a much better race profile, this was just the sort of confidence boost that the boys needed in the run up to Henley.  Junior Colts B and the 2nd VIII both had to step up and race above their usual categories owing to early season success, but half of the 2nd VIII reached the final of Junior 4x, reinforcing their NSR result and securing prequalification for Henley.  Junior Colts C and the 2nd/3rd VIII quad kept Mr Cross busy, the former leaving their fin and rudder in the warm-up lane, and the latter splitting a sculling blade clean in half...

 

Crews for Henley (other than The VIII in the Princess Elizabeth) will be as follows:

 

Jordan	Fawley A
Metcalfe OS	Fawley A
Scott, C	Fawley A
Zaboronsky	Fawley A
Durini di Monza OS	Fawley B
Klebnikov	Fawley B
Lawson	Fawley B
Strong ma	Fawley B
Bruce ma	Temple
Cornelissen	Temple
Fisher mi	Temple
Friend OS	Temple
Goble	Temple
Jhaveri	Temple
King, L	Temple
Peters	Temple
Thurston mi	Temple

Difficult choices

At this time of year thoughts always turn to how best to serve those boys not in The VIII with regard to Henley entries.  With only one crew allowed in the Princess Elizabeth (the school event for eights in which The VIII always compete) the options for other crews are either to try to qualify in the Temple Challenge Cup (the eights event for universities) or the Fawley Challenge Cup (the event for school quads).  This year the decisions have been particularly difficult.  To qualify for the Temple you really have to have a 2nd VIII or Colts crew which is a little way clear of the field.  Back in 2008 our Colts A fulfilled this criterion.  In the last three years the 2nd VIII have done so.  No other school has consistently qualified crews for the event.  However, if we did nothing differently this year, the gut feeling of the coaches was that we would be putting our chances at 50/50 for the 2nd VIII, worse for Colts A.  We could have had just one boat rowing at the regatta.  As a result we have done something a little different this year and we have done some extensive testing over the last couple of days to back up our decisions and choices.  This testing has also confirmed that there aren't any boys in these crews who have come on and deserve to challenge for a seat in The VIII for Henley, so we can be sure that we have explored all avenues.  The boys from the 2nd VIII in Champ 4x at NSR will race in the same crew in the Fawley.  Having come 7th at NSR they will hopefully prequalify, but if not they should certainly get through the qualifiers.  One or two boys have shown that they are on a par with boys in this crew, but not faster.  A mix of 2nd and 3rd VIII boys will form a B quad in the Fawley (last seat still to be confirmed) and should have a decent chance of qualifying, having only been a few seconds behind the A quad at NSR.  The Temple eight will be a mix of boys from the 2nd VIII (3 oarsmen and cox) and Colts A (five oarsmen).  This should form a crew which is faster than Colts A, and hopefully one which is faster than the 2nd VIII too (it has some strong sweep oarsmen from the 2nd VIII in it).  If the rowing gods smile upon us we could end up with four crews at the regatta, but one can never take anything for granted.  How the Stewards will run the qualifying races if the weather keeps on like this is, for example, something of a problem...

Parents of boys in crews for the regatta will get an e-mail about tickets for the Stewards' Enclosure shortly.

National Schools

A meteorologically grim Sunday could not take the edge off what was an excellent weekend for the club as a whole in Nottingham.  Whilst there were some near misses, which might so nearly have gone the other way, the club came away with three golds and four silvers.  This put us 4th in the medal table (headed up by Headington as almost always at the moment), and highest placed of the boys' sweep schools.  More importantly, I think, this was the first time for a number of years when success was spread across all the age groups (with gold and silver medals at all three levels).  This is great testimony to the strength in depth of the club, and bodes very well for the future.

In more detail, The VIII rowed through the field in their heat to finish second, and so go straight to the final.  There, they narrowly missed doing the same, missing out on taking bronze from Radley by just half a second (Abingdon won in a new record time).  This was always our realistic aim for this season, in what was always going to be a very strong year for Hampton and Abingdon, so it was a good performance from The VIII, not least considering there were two boys in the crew for whom this was their first NSR final.

The 2nd VIII progressed easily at the head of their semi-final, but allowed Abingdon to take a little too much of a lead around 500m gone.  In a tailwind, this was hard to take back and to Abingdon's credit they held off two strong challenges, to win the event. In an unusual regatta season, we had not seen Abingdon for five weeks, and had to remind ourselves that, until recently, our target of medalling was looking tricky; this crew had come a long way since March.

The 3rd VIII rowed a great race to win the West cup.  It was nip and tuck all the way with Hampton, and again this was a race which was won in record time.  Many boys in this crew had had a difficult season (through illness or injury) and the result was all the more pleasing for that.

At Colts level, both A and B crews won silver in the eights.  Both crews finished strongly, but had left themselves with a little too much to do in the closing stages, missing out to fast starting crews from St Pauls (A crew) and Hampton (B crew).  Four boys from the A crew got the chance to put this right on the Sunday with a win in the Windsor Cup for J16 coxless fours.

At Junior Colts level this was our most successful regatta for a number of years (probably since 2004).  The A crew won silver, missing out by two thirds of a length to Latymer, and so having closed the gap on them since Wallingford.  The B crew built on their success at Wallingford, this time beating all comers to take the Monkton Bluefriars' Cup by clear water.

National Schools' Regatta

National Schools' is now looming large on the horizon, with the draw published and lots of our crews looking in good shape to be in contention for medals.

Saturday will see racing in VIIIs, with Upper Boats and Colts also racing in small boats on the Sunday.

The action starts early on Saturday morning for the J15s, with a time trial for JCB and JCC in J15 2ndVIIIs.  Semi-finals are all in the middle of the day, led off by The VIII at 1156 (first event off as there is a repechage a couple of hours later).  JCA and the 2nd VIII will also have semi-finals.  For all Colts crews and the 3rd VIII it's straight to the final.  Finals start for our crews with J15 2nd VIIIs at 1704; the final of Championship VIIIs is the last race of the day at 1938.

On Sunday The VIII will split into a coxed and coxless four and there will be two quads, drawn from the 2nd and 3rd VIIIs.  Colts A will race in two coxless fours.  There are time trials for all these events, from 1005 to 1105.  Semi-finals would be in the early afternoon, and finals around 1700.

Wallingford

After all the excitement of BASHER, the first main regatta of the season say excellent racing across the club. There were four wins in all, with the 2nd VIII taking both Intermediate 3 and J18B VIIIs. Colts A won J16 VIIIs and Junior Colts B won J15 B VIIIs. Both Colts B and the 3rd VIII came in ahead of their rivals from Hampton. There were near misses too. The top half of The VIII just missed out in Senior Coxed Fours in a race which went down to which crew was taking a stroke on the line. Junior Colts A rowed a gutsy race in their final, holding the lead for much of the course, but not quite keeping Latymer at bay.
The club is in fine spirits.

Wallingford off to a good start

Wallingford Regatta

Apologies for the lack of more recent updates.  For reasons that some of you will know, life has got more hectic than ever of late.  Tomorrow sees a full day's racing for the club, and an excellent chance to see how we are shaping up for Nat Schools.  Crews will be racing in the following categories:

Div 1      The VIII                IM1 8+

                2^nd VIII                  IM3 8+

                3^rd VIII                   IM3 8+

                JCB                         J15B 8+

                JCC                         J15B 8+

 

Div 2      The VIII                Sen 4+ and IM3 4+

                2^nd VIII                  J18B 8+

                JCA                         J15A 8+

                Colts A                  J16 8+

                Colts B                  J16 8+