As usual over this bank holiday weekend, the rowers were busy racing at the different regattas held in the Thames valley. GMSBC had over 60 athletes competing in some 47 races. A commentary on all would probably challenge the most ardent of supporters: so here are the highlights.
Marlow Spring Regatta – Saturday 3rd May
This is an exciting river regatta with three lane racing, a heat and final in each event. All our crews beat at least one other crew, so there was a high level of success across the rowers competing.
The first race of the day was an exciting one for Lily Nickless in her Single, who, having been lead over the first half of the race by open water, rowed through her opponent to win her heat. This was quickly followed by Nancy Griffiths winning her Single, making the final see two competitors from GMSBC. In the final we had a very successful 1st and 2nd, with Lily taking the medal.
In the next wave we had the Year 10 girls back in action in Double Sculls. In this event they went one better with all three Doubles winning their heats making it an all GMSBC final, with Lily and partner Georgina Greening taking the medal. In this same wave, the Year 9 Boys’ Double of Jack O’Reilly and Henry Constable made it into their final.
In the final wave of the day, the Year 10 Boys’ Eight had a straight final against Shiplake, whom they had beaten earlier in the year during the Head season. The boys made short work of the opposition, winning comfortably. We also had a Year 11 Boys’ Double, of Sam Gale and Euan Speare, who won their event. In the finale there was a close race between them, a Borlase Double, and a Double from RGS High Wycombe so a very local affair.
Wallingford Regatta – Dorney , Sunday 4th May
This was the most prestige event of the weekend, where the level of competition was much higher than the others. Unusually for a Dorney event , which makes it quite attractive, is that you do not start with a time trial before being allocated to A,B ,C finals. Progress to the final can be three-fold: winners of heats go straight through; the fastest losers are allocated a finalist place; the last few finalist places are allocated by a second round of heats, known as repechage. Of the five crews GMS had entered, the J16 Four (Year 11 boys) and the J18 Quad won their heats, progressing straight to their finals.
The WJ16 4x (Year 11 Girls’ Quad) who had won this W J16 event as Year 10s, had a straight route through to the final but, sadly, were a little out gunned by local rivals Marlow and Headington School.
Another attraction of this format is that you do not go into the final with a clear speed order because times achieved in different heats can be highly effected by the margins of victory. In the J16 Four, both GMS and Hampton had easy wins and so our times were definitely slower than the South African crew from the other Heat. After their dominant victory at JIRR, the GMS crew were hopeful, but with an international Crew and the top Four crews from Hampton School to contend with, there was going to be a battle.
In the early stages, the three leading crews had little between them, with GMS a few feet in front, but going into the halfway mark GMS had eeked out a one length lead; Hampton and the South Africans, were neck and neck behind them. This stayed pretty much the same through the next 500m, but as GMS pushed on for the last quarter, Hampton raised their rate and made a very strong challenge. The two crews of Fours, at full stretch, were pulling away from third place crew and Hampton were definitely inching closer to GMS. The trend was against our crew but the finish line came soon enough and the GMS Boy’s’ Four won Wallingford Trophy for the second time in three years.
The Boys’ Quad final was the final race; it was a packed field with Windsor Boys’ School, clear favourites. By 500m, Windsor Boys (WBS) had a length on the rest of the field, but there was nothing much between 2nd and 5th with leads changing between Claires Court, Marlow and Grange. At 1000m WBS now had a length of clear water and Marlow and Claires court were starting to drop off the pace, Over the next 500, the race became a head to head between GMS and Grange for second and third places; going into the final quarter GMS were down by half a length. With both crews raising their rate and pushing for the line, the battle for second place intensified. This time, at the finish line, Grange came second and GMS an honourable third. A truly great race.
Junior Sculling Regatta- Monday 5th May
This regatta follows the more usual format of time trial followed by seeded finals. The weather, which had been wonderful on Saturday, was cold and, more importantly, pretty windy. At Dorney, this is always a risk as it is often a cross wind, making the lanes unfair and disrupting racing. In fact given the forecast it looked highly likely that some lesser races would be cancelled, which sadly did happen affecting a couple of our girls crews.
For this reason the crews all had to achieve as high a ranking as possible, to ensure a good place in the finals.
An early start for the Year 10 and 11 Boys’ Quads; they were at Dorney before 7:00, on the plus-side this meant they had slightly calmer conditions. The Year 10 Boys’ Quad did considerably better than their position at the Scullery last term so were please with their time trial.
Of the 11 crews GMS entered, seven made it through to race.
The Year 10 boys went into their final with high hopes and with local rivals Marlow and Borlase in the mix. They had a good start and were in the leading pack for 500m; next GMS put more pressure on the field, which challenged the other crews over the next 500m: at halfway GMS had opened up a length lead over Marlow in second place. This stayed pretty much the same for the next 750m, although both crews were pulling away from the rest. Over the last 250m a desperate race for the line saw Marlow creeping up and on the last couple of strokes they took the win. Still an exciting race and, perhaps, a lesson not to be on the wrong side of that sort of result.
The Year 11 boys also had an exciting final with Kings School Worcester and the South Africans on either side of them. There may have been a few feet between the crews at 1000m, but over the second half Kings Worcester stretched out a half length lead over us, who in turn had a half length over the South Africans. Despite all crews raising their rates in the last 250m, no real change in position came about. A very good race from the GMS crew, particularly after their hard racing the day before.
It was a similar story with the WJ16 Double who had a great row to come second behind Stratford upon Avon RC and just ahead of South African Schools Rowing Union.
The Year 10 Girls’ Quad were next up and were in the lane next to Borlase, so they were very keen to beat the local rivals. At 500m Kingston Grammar School were emerging from the pack as leaders but there was probably less than a length from them to GMS in fifth place. As they went through the markers the top 3 crews started to eek out a greater lead, but the main focus from GMS’s point of view was the Borlase/GMS race going on in lanes 5 and 6. At each of the first three markers Borlase had lead by around 0.5 secs (1/4 length), going into the last 500m the GMS crew lifted their rate and made an extraordinary push and the Borlase girls could not hold them back. It was an exceptional race, with GMS beating the opposition by over 2 seconds.
Next up was the J18 Boys’ Quad, with three of the other crews not having raced the day before and a pretty level field. Over the course of the race, the field split into two packs, those who had raced on Sunday and those who had not, with the fresher crews leading.
The boys sculled well and had a good race, they maginally lost to Grange, but beat Marlow. They will need to find a bit more by NSR to match fourth place achieved last year, but they are very much in the frame.
Our main medal hope from the time trials was our WJ17 Double of Natalie Quinn and Elise Whyte. They were second in the time trial but times were quite tight.
They left the block cleanly in tricky, blustery conditions and the race quickly developed with GMS in second place behind the leader. GMS and Tideway scullers battled it out for Silver and Bronze. Although Tideway opened up a half length lead at 1000m, the GMS Double were fighting hard to regain it and even as they charged for the line it was not clear whether or not they could make it. An extremely well fought race and a great Bronze medal for these two GMS girls.
The last race of the day was the WJ14 Octos. The GMS crew is an exceptional bunch and has achieved much to be in this elite event. By now the Dorney conditions had become very unfair with a very strong cross head-wind favouring the near lanes. As you looked at the octos coming over the last 500m there was a clear echelon of crews with lane 2 a length ahead of lane 3, a length ahead of lane 4 and so on.
In these circumstances, there was not much hope of changing the order from the time trial and in fact the result completely reflected the time trial ones. Coach Nick Harding said how proud he was of how they had raced and the standard they have risen to.
