Maidenhead Rowing Club

National Sculling Head:
WJ18 quad finished in 1st place
WJ16 quad finished in 2nd place
WJ14 quad finished in 4th place
J16 quad finished in 4th place
J18 quad finished in 15th place
WJ15 quad finished in 30th place

National Schools Rowing Head:
WJ18 eight finished in 1st place

Wednesday 14th March competing at Dorney Lake

On the Wednesday, six Maidenhead crews entered this event at Dorney Lake. For the J16 and J18 age groups this involved two timed 1900m pieces with the times added together to find the winning overall winning crews from each age group.

Top achievement of the day was from our WJ18 quad of Aimee Campbell (steers), Sophie Delaney, Louise Entwistle and Ally Brooks. Two of this crew were involved in winning this same trophy in 2006. Racing turned out to be very close in the end, although in the race, this crew went off first in their division and moved away from the immediate chasing pack. However, when the times came out it was a very close call between 1st and 2nd place crews, with only one second separating Maidenhead (6:59.1 and 6:59.3) and Bedford High School (6:59.9 and 6:59.3), so all credit to BHS and well done to the Maidenhead crew for finishing the right side of this one second difference.

The girls WJ16 crew of Aimee Broadbent, Rebekah Kerns, Alice Ancora and Katy Lion sculled hard on the first lap. On the second run they committed themselves more and went faster, overall they finished in a very credible 2nd place, to take a Silver medal, 8 seconds behind Marlow RC. (7:07.2 and 7:03.9)

Our WJ14 quad of Henrietta Jenkins, Rachael Aldridge, Felicity Young and Lexy Dobson coxed by Zoe Broadbent rowed aggressively all the way down the course and finished in a good time of 7:59.1. Unfortunately this placed them just outside the medals in 4th place but it is a good result near the top of a competitive field of 27 crews. This race was very close with several crews all finishing within a few seconds of the medal winners. Although the winning Newark crew beat the second placed Marlow crew comfortably the second and third crews were only a few seconds faster than Maidenhead and with a little more control we can expect to do better in future.

The boys J16 quad of Ross McCoriston, Simon Lilley, George Poynter and Robert Ashburner finished 4th in a large national field of 21 quads. The first run over the 1900m course saw the boys start at a high rate and they found it difficult to find their rhythm through the remainder of the race. The second run saw a better performance and exactly the same time as the first run. (6:37.7 and 6:37.6)

The quad were positioned to start first in their group and had a strong Evesham crew immediately behind, pushing them all of the way down the course. The Maidenhead crew couldn't match the pace of this boat who won the event. The Evesham quad included last year's national double sculls champions. Warrington RC were second and Sir William Borlase School third in the event

The boys J18 crew were a new young combination on the day and included Robert Ashburner as stroke who is still aged 14 following his efforts in the J16 quad. The remainder of the crew were Tim Wildbore, Adam Lilley as J17s and Alex Ryde who also has two more years as a J18.

They finished a creditable 15th from a field of over 40 quads. They had two good races over the course and were pushed in both races by a Borlase quad who were out rating them. (6:26.5 and 6:33.2)

The WJ15 quad, with Katherine Henderson, Lucie Brockwell, Emma Kerns and Anna Campbell on board and Rebecca Reeve coxing, were always going to find their event hard as some of them have suffered from illness and injury in the last few weeks, and the whole crew have only got together recently. They made an admirable effort however and can be happy to have finished 30th out of 42 crews. Their time was 7:58.4, some 40 seconds behind the winners. There were a lot of good crews in this event with very few being far off the pace.

Thursday 15th March competing in London over 8’s Head course

The very next day the Rowing event took place over the famous Oxford and Cambridge boat course. Maidenhead junior girls WJ18 quad and WJ16 quad combined to compete in the WJ18 event. This event seen as a blue ribbon event for the top rowing Schools. Maidenhead entered this competition for the first time in 2006 and as a new entry they performed well to finish in 3rd place. Since last year it has been a goal for the girls to win this event. Six members of the 2006 crew were joined this year by Ally Brooks and Aimee Broadbent. A little more time was spent in the boat and training had been going well.

Maidenhead girls went off second in their division, chasing 2006 champions Headington School, Oxford with LEH going off in 3rd place. The girls new that they had to perform 100% on the day to clock a faster time than both these crews who did not enter the Wednesday Sculling Head as they were saving themselves to compete for this rowing title. Maidenhead girls went off hard at the start and immediately pushed Headington School and by Barnes Bridge it was looking very close between the first 3 crews.

As the first 3 crews raced under Hammersmith Bridge it seemed at this point that Maidenhead had started to close in on the Headington crew and started to pull away from a strong LEH crew. This pressure continued to the finish line with the Maidenhead girls finishing 1st in 18min 51s, Headington School finishing in 2nd place in 19min 00s and LEH finishing in 3rd place in 19min 01s. The excellent news for the athletes and the club is that seven of these girls can compete in this same event next year.

I would like to take this opportunity to say well done to all the coaches involved for continuing to assist these very talented athletes reach their potential. I have received numerous text messages from the top rowing Schools who clearly were very pleased to see Maidenhead RC junior athletes win this top event. This is a truly fantastic achievement.

Thanks to John T and Orlando for their crew write ups.

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