Conditions were initially very good for the heats, lots of sunshine and little wind. In the afternoon the wind got up for the finals which made racing more difficult, especially getting aligned at the start with a strong crosswind.

Maidenhead’s 3 top crews from the Advanced girls section provided a demonstration of how to scull well. All 3 crews led from the start and won both their heats and Grand finals in style and with convincing margins in the range of 4 to 8 lengths. This was great to see as they were tested against the top crews from each of the 12 regions. Each event held a Petite Final of six crews and a Grand Final of the fastest 6 crews. The fastest six crews in the heats went through to the Grand Finals.

The advanced junior squads are benefiting this year from the boats supplied from their new sponsor Eddie Murphy, CEO of Global Currency Exchange.This is Maidenhead Rowing Club’s best team performance to date at this Junior Inter-regional high-level event. Winning any of these events requires you to race and win against the top crews in the country. Maidenhead Rowing Club crews were seen as one of the top performing clubs of the event.

JIRR Summary of Results:

WJ14 1x: Carmel Bevan, despite being one year under-age for this event, achieved a place in the Grand Final after finishing 2nd in her heat. Carmel finished in 5th place in the Grand Final with a time of 8m 7s which was a very good result.

MJ14 1x: Robert Ashburner, also one year under for this event, achieved a 4th place in his heat to qualify for a place in the Grand Final. Robert raced well in the Grand Final, challenging for 2nd place, but had to settle for a good Bronze medal in a time of 6m 52s, just 2 seconds off Silver.

WJ16 2x: Louise Entwistle & Ally Brooks expected to be pushed hard by a pair of GB squad athletes, but this did not happen. They had clear water at 500m and went on to win their heat in convincing style. In the Grand Final they won by 3 lengths in a time of 6m 11s  – a good Gold medal.

WJ14 2x: Rebekah Kerns & Alice Ancora won their heat in convincing style, some 5 lengths over Tideway Scullers. They repeated the same winning margin in the Grand final and won in a time of 6m 35s. This was their second Gold, as they were both in the WJ15 winning quad.

WJ15 4x+: Katie Lion, Rebekah Kerns, Alice Ancora, Aimee Campbell with cox Lizzy Gerrard won their WJ15+ quad heat in style again leading from the front. They sculled better in the final, after making a couple of adjustments to their loaned boat, and won the Gold medal by 4 lengths from Dame Alice Harpur in a time of 6m 10s.

A record of another sort was set by Sean Kerns and Billy Brooks who left for this Nottingham event at 5:00am in the morning and finished unloading boats at the club just before midnight!
Our thanks go to Reading Blue Coat School who very kindly loaned us the use of their lightweight coxed quad for the WJ15 girls.

Next Regattta will be Wallingford at Dorney Lake on Sunday 1st May.

Billy Brooks
Captain Juniors
Maidenhead Rowing Club