This year, Maidenhead junior athletes continued their winning ways and came back home with 9 National Championships crew medals.

With the Nationals moving to Scotland after a 3 year gap, some might have expected tough conditions north of the border, but the weather was glorious, though possibly not from the athletes’ viewpoint, for all three days, with wall to wall sunshine and very high temperatures. Indeed the conditions on Sunday included a gentle tailwind, which allowed for some extremely fast finals. Maidenhead boys and girls performed excellently, reaching many finals and bringing back a haul of 9 crew boat medals; 1 gold, 4 silver and 4 bronze. This is a very good performance by Maidenhead’s junior athletes, testing themselves against the best young rowers in the country.


Junior Boys

Maidenhead’s J15 Coxed Quad are the new National Champions and record holders after winning their event at Strathclyde Park last weekend. The crew consisting of Ross McCorriston, Simon Lilley, George Poynter, Rob Ashburner and coxed by Tom O’Reilly won their eliminator on Friday, qualifying for Sunday’s final. Racing conditions were near perfect with only a light breeze. The Maidenhead crew started fast according to plan, taking a 2 second lead by the 500m stage. They maintained this lead over Windsor Boys School BC throughout the race, covering the pushes from the following three crews all overlapping Maidenhead through the race. These four crews battling all the way to the finish line. A very close and exciting race that brought the many spectators to their feet near the finish. The final line up at 2000m was gold for Maidenhead in a new record time of 6:56.82, Silver to Windsor Boys School BC and bronze to Warrington.

Rob Ashburner came second in the J14 1x, breaking the previous Championship record set by Dave Jones of Maidenhead in 2002. In the Friday heats, Rob started fast but then faded a bit to be beaten into second place by Fox of Peterborough. In order to get to the finals Rob then had to go through a second qualifying race (repecharge) in the afternoon. This race went more to plan with Rob leading from the start and rowing steadily to win. In Sunday’s final Rob started well and at the half way stage was in the leading pack in fourth position. The sculler from George Watson’s College BC was then left behind.The remaining three fought on to the 2000m finish, Rob overtaking Fox of Peterborough at the line to take silver by 0.02 seconds. The event was won by Sam Howell of St Neots RC in 7:46.07.

In the J15 2x event Alex Ryde and Ertan Hazine represented Maidenhead, winning the bronze medal. The boys qualified in Friday racing staying close to their opponents from Evesham RC. In Sunday's final Alex and Ertan sculled strongly down the 2K course again, following Evesham very closely. After 1000m Maidstone Invicta RC put on the power to overtake them, the final result being Gold – Evesham RC (7:09.61), Silver to Maidstone Invicta and Bronze to Maidenhead.

The J16 coxless four composite with Claire’s Court rowed very well to take another bronze medal. This new crew of Tim Wildbore, Adam Lilley, Danny Garrett and Josh Cremin (Claire’s Court) were racing together for the first time. The event was a straight final with the outcome of Gold to Tyne RC, Silver to Walton RC and bronze to Claire’s Court/Maidenhead.

Max Gerrard represented Maidenhead’s advanced junior men, the other members are currently away training for international events. Max rowed in a composite crew in the Open Junior 2x event with Lewis Knollman from Walton RC. In the qualifying races on Friday Max and Lewis came second to Marlow RC with Walton RC third. Second place took them through to the repecharge on Sunday morning when they took second place behind Yarm School qualifying them for a place in the afternoon finals where they finished sixth.


Junior Girls

Racing started off on Friday with Carmel Bevan in the WJ14 1x winning her heat in style, automatically qualifying straight into the final. In the WJ14 2x Fifi Bevan and Gabby Watson beat some strong crews from Aberdeen schools and LEH. The WJ14 4x+ 'B' crew of Emma Kerns, Felicity Young, Rebecca Reeve and Hannah Shimmin , and cox Zoe Broadbent sculled well to finish 2nd to Avon County and qualified for the repechage. In the last heat of the day, Maidenhead’s 'A' crew of Fifi Bevan, Gabby Watson, Anna Campbell, Lexy Dobson and cox Emma Sanerkin, 3 of whom were racing a year up, lined up against 3 other highly fancied crews. They set off down the course together, literally neck and neck, with the Star/St. Neots composite taking a short lead into the last 500m which they extended by the finish, winning by 2 seconds. Maidenhead pushed hard to take 2nd place ahead of LEH and Marlow, who in 4th place, were the unlucky crew to be knocked out in this fast heat.

The WJ15 2x of Alice Ancora and Rebekah Kerns came down the course to win easily from crews from Norwich, Grange School Hertford, Kings Canterbury and LEH.

The WJ15 4x+ of Katie Lion, Maddi Reynolds, Aimee Broadbent and Carmel Bevan sculled well within themselves as stroke person Katie Lion was not feeling well and they came second to LEH in a very strong heat, but with 2 qualifying both crews went straight into Sunday’s final.

In the WJ 4x Maidenhead’s crew of Alice Ancora, Aimee Campbell, Caris Marsh and Charlotte Weeks finished 2nd to a crew from Calpe, Gibraltar and with 2 qualifying, both went into Sunday’s final.

The Maidenhead/Rob Roy composite WJ 4x with Phillippa Cuss on board finished in 3rd place so had to race again in the repechage.

Caris Marsh from the WJ 4x then had to jump straight into a double to partner Lauian Pepper in the WJ 2x  where they came second to local crew George Watsons/Nitsdale composite, but still qualified for the final.

In the WJ 1x there were 3 Maidenhead scullers up against each other in the same heat: Laurian Pepper, Charlotte Weeks and World Class Start sculler Phillippa Cuss. All the Maidenhead scullers performed well with Pepper increasing her rating in the last 500m to pull away from Weeks and Cuss to finish second to a strong sculler form Rob Roy boat club.

With all first round events completed, a number of crews from Maidenhead were now involved in the repechages, and in the first of these the two Maidenhead crews met each other in the WJ14 4x+. From the start, three crews pulled away, with Maidenhead 'A', LEH and Queens High School getting away from the others. Maidenhead finished the race in fantastic style, completing the last 500m in 2.01, to finish 0.2 seconds ahead of LEH. The pace was too quick for the Maidenhead 'B' girls, who came in fifth, sadly not progressing to the final.

Following Friday’s qualifiers all of the juniors had a rest day on Saturday before progressing to Sunday’s finals.

On Sunday, Maidenhead started the medal trail in the first race of the day the WJ14 1x, with Carmel Bevan sculling well, and taking the bronze medal behind Anderson of LEH and Neil of Peterborough, with Wedlake of Walton in a disappointing fourth.

In the WJ14 2x of Fifi Bevan and Gabby Watson, the girls started slowly but put in an enormous push near the finish to come between the 2 Star doubles and take the silver medal.

With barely 20 minutes recovery time before the quad had to race, arguably not enough time in the fierce heat, the pair jumped into the WJ14 4x+ to race the gruelling 2k course once again and with the heat and the previous race taking its inevitable toll on these very young scullers, Maidenhead were slow at the start and couldn’t get back on terms with the leading crews. They tried their best, but as they approached the last 500m, their famed finish never happened. They recorded their slowest 500m split of all their three races and finished a disappointing fifth. The LEH crew, who Maidenhead had beaten in both the heat and the repechage, won the final.

In the WJ15 2x, Maidenhead’s Alice Ancora and Rebekah Kerns collected another silver medal in their final, sculling very well for the whole distance but being forced to accept second place by an impressive double from Yarm school, who won by 12 secs.  

In the WJ15 4x+, Maidenhead’s crew once again viewed LEH as their chief opponents, but a slow start saw Maidenhead left in the blocks as the remaining five crews moved off. They made an excellent recovery, moving past all the other crews and being 2.5lengths down on LEH at halfway, sculling strongly to the finish this young crew pulled back to 1 length at 500m to go and then reduced the gap to 1/2 length at the finish, a satisfactory result taking into account this crew had only just come back to full strength.

In the WJ 4x, Maidenhead's young crew found the competition tough but put in a good effort to lead at 500m and be in the frame at 1000m. From here in the competition was tough and considering Maidenhead only had one member of its National Schools winning crew on board and included a WJ15 at stroke, they did extremely well to make the final and come 6th to a strong crew form Henley. Maidenhead’s Phillippa Cuss joined with Rob Roy boat club to win a bronze medal.

In the WJ2x final Pepper and Marsh lost by a second to City of Oxford to come fourth, the winners a local composite double from George Heriots and Nithsdale.

In the final of the WJ1x, Laurian Pepper sculled well down the course considering she just finished a tough race with Caris Marsh in the WJ 2x finals and to finish sixth in this competitive final.

In the W2x Louise Entwistle and Ruth Walcak from Hollingworth Lake competed in the senior open womens double event for race experience in preparation for the Coupe De La Jeunesse to take place in Holland at the end of July. In their first round they finished fourth so had to go to the repachage. In this race both girls sculled much better and not only won this race but set a new PB for themselves and a good time. In the final they sculled well but could not match the pace of the selected Commonwealth Games double and finished 5th in the final, but this was a good race preparation for the Coupe event.


Scottish selection for Home Countries match

At the end of the National Championships, Laurian Pepper was advised that she had been selected for a seat in the Scottish JW 4x with the JW 2x who won Gold at National Champs and a Scottish sculler who won Silver at National Champs. This should be a strong boat for the Home Countries match on 22nd July in Scotland. Aimee Campbell was delighted to hear that she had also been selected for a seat in the Scottish eight.


This was overall an excellent result for Maidenhead juniors considering 6 of our top junior boys and girls were not available to compete this year at National Champs due to GB call up.