Great Marlow – Bedford Regatta

This weekend the Great Marlow Boat Club went to Bedford Regatta, one of the largest River regattas outside Henley Royal.  GMSBC took a large squad with four eights /octuples and seven fours /quads racing across a range of events.

Out of this squad there were some excellent performances with wins for the year 9 girls in coxed quads, and the year 10 girls in the coxed fours. Both crews had to progress through several qualifying rounds to make the finals and put in some impressive victories along the way. Even more impressive was that they were both also racing in more than one event.

We made two other finals. The 6^th form girls lost by a length to their rivals Bedford Girls School in a hard fought race. The 6^th form boys started their day well by beating local rivals from Borlase in the first round, and later in the day met Norwich School who have beaten them to Gold Medal two years running at the National Schools Regatta. Winning this put them up against a formidable four from Radley College stroked by a boy from last year’s GB medal winning eight from the World championships. In an amazingly gutsy performance from the GMS boys, Radley just managed to hold on to win the final by half a length.

Other notable performances were the year 9 boys Octuple who beat Borlase for the third time in 6 days and put up a very creditable performance against the eventual winners, and the year 10 girls eight who very narrowly missed making the final having beaten Wadham College, Oxford in the first round.