Maidenhead Rowing Club sent along a group of 17 Junior Athletes (5 boys and 12 girls) to compete at Gent International Regatta held over 2 days Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th May 2005. This event was all about raising the bar and competing at a higher level International event and to gauge how good our juniors are on the International scene.
 
Maidenhead Junior athletes performed extremely well and ended up winning 3 Golds, 2 Silvers and 5 Bronze medals. Plus in some of the events our junior crews beat National squad crews from the UK and other countries, which was very pleasing to see.

Read the updated report with info on all crews

Gent International Regatta attracts some of the top competition in Europe and is a real test of performance measured against leading clubs and National squad crews within Europe.
 
The racing was held over a multi-lane 2000m course. Conditions were tough for competitors with strong winds causing white horses in the middle of the course and rain at times.
 
Most events had in excess of 20 crews, so the racing was timed. You had to win your heat in a fast time to stand a chance of winning a medal.
 
Summary of Maidenhead's wins are as follows:
 
WJ12 2x        ( 5 crews) Gold - Rebecca Reeve and Fifi Bevan
WJ14 1x        (37 crews) Gold - Alice Ancora, Silver Rebekah Kerns, Bronze Katie Lion
WJ14 2x        (20 crews) Gold - Alice Ancora and Rebekah Kerns
WJ18 2x        (54 crews) Bronze - Laurian Pepper and Jo Wright
WJ18 4x        ( 9 crews) Bronze - Aimee Campbell, Natalie Trinder, Laurian Pepper, Jo Wright
MJ14 1x         (47 crews) Bronze - Robert Ashburner
MJ18 4x        (31 and 16 crews) Bronze and Silver – Sam Ashburner Composite GB squad crew
 

Full results Saturday 7th May

 

JW12 2x
Rebecca Reeve and Fifi Bevan raced over 500m in a straight final (5 crews) and led from the start to come home in 1st place in a time of 2mins 10secs. 2nd place crew was from RIC Amsterdam in 2mins 12secs and third was Gentse RS from Belgium in 2mins 27secs.

 

JM 4x
Sam Ashburner representing Maidenhead in a MJ18 4x GB squad composite crew. Raced against 31 crews and finished in 3rd place, winning a Bronze medal in 6mins 26 secs. Gold and Silver went to Belgian crews who finished in 6m 18secs and 6m 22secs.

 

JW14 2x
Alice Ancora and Rebekah Kerns raced over 1000m and won their heat in style and with the fastest time of all 20 crews at this age group, 4m 04secs. Silver and Bronze medals went to Belgian crews. Anna Campbell and Carmel Bevan raced well and finished a very credible 7th place overall in a time of 4m 27secs. Alexi Dobson and Fifi Bevan racing up a year or two also did well to finish in overall 9th position in a time of 4m 36secs.

 

J14 1x
Robert Ashburner, who was initially attending the event as a spectator, managed to borrow a boat from the Maidenhead girls contingent, in order to enter the J14 singles. Still only 12, Rob put on an impressive performance against 46 other entrants, from Britain, Belgium, France, Ireland and the Netherlands.  He led his heat from the start and battled against Nino de Jager from Amsterdam all the way to the finish, Nino crossing the line less than half a second ahead. Only one other heat was faster. Overall Rob came third, the proud possessor of a bronze medal.

 

JM 1x
Out of 78 competitors in this event saw Maidenhead’s David Jones and Sam Ashburner finish in 15th and 17th position respectively. Matt Best and Max Gerrard also competed at this higher age group and finished in 31st and 32nd place.

 

JW 2x
Out of 54 crews racing in this J18 event, Maidenhead’s 3 crews did extremely well to finish in 3rd, 7th and 8th position. This event was the Belgium International Championship doubles.  Such was the standard of competition that this event saw the GB squad double finish in 13th place. So this was an excellent result for three young Maidenhead doubles to all finish ahead. Laurian Pepper and Jo Wright (pictured left) had an excellent scull down the course and managed to win the Bronze medal by 2/100ths of a second from the 4th place Dutch crew.
Ally Brooks and Natalie Trinder had a good scull in the rough conditions and finished in 7th place, 8m 08secs and Katie Lion and Aimee Campbell finished in 8th place 8m 10 secs.

JM 2x
Sam Ashburner in a composite double with Tideway Scullers did well to finish overall in 9th place out of 53 doubles. Matt Best and Max Gerrard did well racing at this higher level and finished a very credible 18th out of 53 crews.

 

JW 4x
17 crews competed for this event with several National crews from Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Maidenhead’s crew of Ally Brooks, Natalie Trinder, Jo Wright and Laurian Pepper sculled well and finished in 5th position out of 17 crews and the 1st GB crew home.

 

Full results Sunday 8th May

 

JW14 1x
This has to be one of the best results of the season to date. Maidenhead entered 3 WJ14 single scullers, all 3 raced in different heats, all 3 won their heats. When the times came out it was excellent to see that Maidenhead finished with a clean sweep of 1st, 2nd and 3rd out of 38 International scullers. Alice Ancora won Gold in a time of 4m 12 secs, Rebekah Kerns won Silver in 4m 20secs and Katie Lion came from behind in her heat to snatch the Bronze medal by 6/100ths of a second in a time of 4m 22secs. (Pictured L-R: Rebekah Kerns, Alice Ancora and Katie Lion)

 

JM18 4x
Sam Ashburner competing again in a composite quad with Tideway Scullers and Upper Thames had a close battle with another GB composite quad. Racing neck and neck over the course saw the Maidenhead composite just pip a Marlow/Newark/Stourport composite by half a second to take the Silver medal.

 

JW16 1x
Ally Brooks competed well at this higher age group and finished a very credible 6th position in a time of 8mins 44secs out of 30 European scullers.

 

JW18 1x
Natalie Trinder and Laurian Pepper competed against 51 European scullers. Natalie finished overall in 19th place in a time of 8mins 51secs. Laurian finished overall in 25th place in a time of 8mins 56secs.

 

JM18 1x
Dave Jones competing against 43 scullers managed to finish in 21st place in a time of 8mins 13secs.

 

JW18 4x
Out of  9 crews competing in this event Maidenhead’s quad of Aimee Campbell, Natalie Trinder, Laurian Pepper and Jo Wright (pictured left) did well to finish in 3rd place in a time of 7m 23secs and take the Bronze medal.

 

JM18 2x
Sam Ashburner competing in a composite double with Tideway Scullers managed to finish in 5th place out of 26 doubles and in a time of 7mins 6secs. Matt Best and Max Gerrard also competing in the J182x on Sunday where they finished 9th some 6 seconds behind Sam's GB composite.

JW16 4x
This event had some very fast quads and Maidenhead’s young quad of Ally Brooks, Alice Ancora, Aimee Campbell and Rebekah Kerns did well to win their heat against a National team from Europe. Overall they finished in 6th place out of 14 crews in a time of 7mins 35secs.

 

Billy Brooks
Captain Juniors

A video of the WJ16 4x final is available here on the RowTV website