And just like that, the season draws to a close. The British Rowing Junior and Senior Club Championships is the final race in many junior rowers’ season, and for many clubs that did not have the opportunity to race at the Henley Royal Regatta, it is one of their biggest races of the season.
Reading Blue Coat School Boat Club
As the only entry from a historically sweep-dominated program, Reading Blue Coat School are under the stewardship of Henley-winning and GB junior athlete-producing coach Johnathan Jackson. The boys from Reading are the Junior 16 eight. Racing up two years requires confidence, which these boys have in abundance. Having had difficulties in the time trial at the National Schools’ Regatta, ending up coming last by a sizeable margin, they did not let this affect them, they held their mettle and ended by winning the C-final by 17 seconds, a testament to the fact that they are destined for greater results, maybe this weekend will provide those results and hopefully attach some metal in some colour to quantify their hard work.
Claires Court School Boat Club
This is an interesting entry from Claires Court School Boat Club. Their very successful Junior 18 quad has partially joined forces with the Junior 18 eight seen at the National Schools’ Regatta earlier this year, with a bronze at the National Schools’ Regatta, and a fifth place finish at Marlow Regatta, the quad will provide an injection of talent into the junior eight that could be the difference between medal colours on the day. It is likely that the technical proficiency and power advantage, given that the quad is Claire’s Court’s top boat this year, will bring the whole standard of the crew up and allow them to compete well at this event.
Tideway Scullers School and Tyne Amateur Rowing Club
An amalgamation of the upper end of The Tideway Scullers School‘s squad, the main achievement this crew has to show for it at the moment is the silver medal-winning quad at the National Schools’ Regatta, due to the infamous weather conditions that caused the late end of the regatta to be cancelled. Building into this the unknown factor of the rower from Tyne ARC, which completes the composite crew, it will be interesting to see what sort of power this crew can put down and see if they can live up to the pedigree that Tideway Scullers and Tyne are renowned for.
Nottingham and Union Rowing Club
Sadly, Nottingham and Union Rowing Club were unable to show themselves at the National Schools’ Regatta due to the cancellation, but they seemed to enter a strong outfit into the Championship Four and Championship Pair. As this crew is a mixture of the three crews entered, they will have gained invaluable skills spending time in smaller boats, allowing them to bring more finesse and sharpness into the largest boat of all, hopefully giving them an edge on the competition.
Predictions
I think I can say with relative confidence that the talent contained within the Claires Court boat will be enough to win the event outright, as their quad will have only strengthened their already well-performing eight. With the same logic, I believe that the composite from Tideway Scullers School and Tyne ARC will be able to pick up silver after some recent injection of talent and the addition of the Tyne rower who would not be in the crew without cause. And finally, Reading Blue Coat School have shown their maturity while being an incredibly young crew with what they produced at the National Schools’ Regatta, and realistically, I think that if it came down to a dogfight for medals on raceday, the boys from Reading will remain level-headed and walk through the opposition.
