Bedford Regatta 2025 – Junior 18 Quads

A brief turn away from the great lakes to move to some classic tournament-style racing, and the opportunity to take a different format of racing by the scruff of the neck.

Great Marlow School

Great Marlow School has been a rising star over recent years, with their top crews now regularly qualifying for Henley Royal Regatta, and sending multiple athletes to GB trials; names spring to mind like Sal Dunn and Ethan Hunt, with the former making the step-up to the U19 World Rowing Championships. Ethan remains in the boat this year, with some of his crewmates from last year. After a good start to the racing season with strong results at the Schools’ Head of the River and the Oarsport Junior Sculling Head, they will surely be a crew to watch

Bedford Modern School

Bedford Modern School has a long and rich history within junior rowing, having more success at Henley Royal Regatta on their women’s side, and international athletes like Ellie Sillar competing at the Coupe De La Jeunesse 2024. Despite this asymmetric history, the squad is starting to build a men’s side, and as they did not compete at the Junior Sculling Regatta, there will be a definite hunger to place well at this event to ensure they hit the ground running for the peak of regatta season.

Oundle School

A relative unknown in this corner of the junior rowing world, I have not seen Oundle School field a junior men’s quad in a while and it’s exciting to see; the school always produce well drilled crews and teams that are ready to race, it would be an absolute delight to see them move higher[up into the field and press on to place well at the upcoming National Schools’ Regatta. Bedford Regatta offers them a valuable opportunity to test their mettle against excellent benchmark crews.

Predictions

We are most likely to see the final between Great Marlow School and Bedford Modern School. Ultimately, I think it is Great Marlow who will claim victory, but there could be an upset if the boys from BMS have used their winter well and are ready to light the fire.