Trio of regattas for GMSBC this weekend
The first Bank Holiday weekend in May is always a busy time in the rowing calendar, with three regattas is three days. While tempting to race crews at multiple events, we spread them out so no one races more than twice.
Marlow Spring Regatta was an early start for our Year 11 girls, arriving at 7:00 to compete in Double Sculls. Some great racing by Ivy Tompkins and Georgina Greening, who won in their final by a good margin of two lengths.
The Year 9 girls were out in force, racing in three Quads. This was their first side by side regatta of the year. All the crews raced competitively in some tight races but, sadly, did not make the finals.
The Year 10 Girls’ Four raced up a year and showed much resilience coming second in their final.
The Year 10 Boys’ Quad went one better to win the J15 4x+.
In the last division of the day, we had our 6th Form girls’ racing in an adult Fours event. They rowed expertly to earn second place in their final.
Also, coming in second were the WJ15 Girls’ Quad.
The Year 11 girls, however, followed their early win in Doubles to win the Quads as well.
At this point the weather broke, and the beautiful sunshine disappeared so the Year 9 Boys’ Event was held in torrential rain and despite a strong performance from the A crew the finals were cancelled due to the weather.
On Sunday, it was the 6th Form boys’ turn for an early 7.00 start at Dorney Lake. Wallingford Regatta is one of the high-profile regattas of the season, attracting top class competition in all events.
In the heat, GMSBC experienced a false start, which perhaps made them a little cautious, they let a very fast Shrewsbury Four and Latymer Upper move ahead of them early in the race. However, from 1000m they broke away from the rest of the pack and started to close on Latymer. Third place was sufficient to see them in the final.
Having learnt a lesson from the semi, the boys started much more strongly over the first 750, in the next race; they were lying in 5th place but only ¾ length back from 2nd. Once they began to attack, their strong rhythm saw them inching through the field and with just 500m to go they were in second place, their momentum held them at this placing to earn them a fantastic second place standing in a very strong field.
The Year 11 boys raced in the afternoon and took an early lead in their heat; they looked to be in a commanding position, sadly, one of the crew, who had been struggling with health issues, found the race pushed him a little too much. So despite qualifying for the final and looking favourites to win, a decision was made to withdraw.
On Monday morning, Ethan Taylor was at the lake at 7:00 as our first competitor at the Junior Sculling regatta. Ethan was keen to race in his Single, following on from racing as part of the Thames Upriver regional team last weekend at Nottingham.
We then had the remaining J15 Boys’ Coxed Quad, followed by Year 9 Girls’ Double and Quad.
This regatta, unlike Wallingford, follows the more common format of a time trial followed by side-by-side finals ranked from the time trial. This regatta was specifically created to give more racing opportunity at a national level to smaller sculling boats.
Following the time trials (tts) the J15 4x+ (Year 10 Boys’ Quad), the WJ14 2x and our WJ18 2x all progressed to finals.
The Year 10 boys had an excellent race in their B final moving up one ranking from the time trial to finish 9th in the overall rankings.
The Year 9 girls struggled somewhat in their A final but are congratulated for qualifying for the prestigious A final.
Our last race of the day was Elise Whyte and Kayla Shillito in WJ182x B final. They had a close race early in the proceedings but with 500m to go they were clearly moving away and led the race home in fine form several seconds ahead of their nearest rival to win the race.
Some great performances on all three days and every rower is congratulated.
