Henley Royal Regatta (HRR)

If you have never been to Henley Royal Regatta, you have missed an historic event on your doorstep. To win here is an enormous achievement. Mr Murison has known athletes who won Gold medals at the Junior World Championships who would happily swap that for a Henley Medal. In fact one of those just won the Pairs at this regatta, after 11 regattas of trying, (more on that at the Awards Evening).

GMS has won many medals this season, yet the achievement of one crew qualifying for Henley would have been the crowning event of a great season: to have three crews in three different events was more than amazing.

The Girls Quad of Erin Huddleston, Poppy Spence, Amelia Eldridge and Charlotte Greening, having already shown their strength by qualifying for Henley Women’s Regatta (HWR), went another step on by winning their place at Henley Royal. This had been their target for the season and they were over the moon to have qualified to race in the Royal Regatta. Drawn against Shiplake in the first round they knew it was a tough race but sculled well and showed resistance and pace, making it a good race despite not matching their opponent’s speed.

The Boys, Quad of Rafa Quinn, Lucas Gray, Sal Dunn and Ethan Hunt drew Claires Court in the first round. From the history and inside information that could be gleaned, it was felt this team was likely to be a quicker crew; also they had a habit of pacing themselves to attack in the third quarter of the race. Our young crew went off fast and took an early lead; GMS’a Quad expected a big push from the opposition just after halfway, so went early and opened up a half-length lead coming into Fawley (the half way point). Claires Court predictably started to push after this and for the first ¼ mile it looked like the GMS Quad were holding them off, however, as the race moved into the enclosures, with Claires Court on the inside and out of the stream, GMS’s Boys’ Quad could not hold them off. The final result was ¾ length lead to Claires Court. The boys held their form throughout and should be immensely proud of a great race.

The Boys’ Eight were the last to race on Tuesday and were drawn against Monkton Combe School (Mr Murison’s Alma Mata). From the qualifying races Monkton would be very similar in speed to halfway and was likely to front-load the race to try to get ahead. The GMS team’s plan was to settle into a solid rhythm and stay close until Fawley made their big move. This the GMS crew did, not allowing Monkton to take a substantial lead and thus able to race to the finish in first place. As the crew had executed there plan perfectly it resulted in GMS’s first ever win at this regatta. We have a young squad so there is more to look forward to next year. The Eight were up against Eton in the next round and while they had a good row, they were no match. Again, something to work on.

This is a great start to building GMSBC’s reputation in the next level of rowing championships and success.