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Maidenhead Most Successful Club with 4 Wins At Pairs Head |
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Friday, 05 October 2007 |
 Maidenhead entered 8 crews in this year's Pairs
Head of the River Race held in London over a 4000 metre course from Chiswick
Bridge to Hammersmith Bridge on Saturday 6th October. This is a major event in
the calendar for crews to establish how well they are going against other top
athletes across the country. Amazingly, for a non-tidal club, Maidenhead ended
up the most successful club with four wins at this prestigious event. Our
winners were:
S2 2x: Phil
Clapp and Carl Delaney (Notts Uni), 12min 43s (3rd fastest
overall);
WS2 2x: Vicky Sims and
Natalie Trinder, 14min 22s; (Sims won mixed doubles
last year with Clapp)
WJ18 2x: Sophie
Delaney and Ally Brooks, 14min 19s; (Brooks'
fourth consecutive win at this head)
WJ16 2x: Gabby Watson and Fifi Bevan,
15mins 4s.
Louise Entwistle (now competing for ULBC) with her former GB
doubles partner Ruth Walzac were the fastest WElite 2x (13min 47s), though
they were listed as a "time only" entry, forfeiting the pennant.
This year saw another large entry of in excess of 360 crews competing. The club's entry consisted of 16 Maidenhead athletes (8 girls, 2 boys, 4 veteran men and 2 senior women). Racing conditions were fairly good although athletes had to cope with a head wind between Barnes Bridge and through to Hammersmith.
Phil Clapp and Carl Delaney competing as a Maidenhead RC/Nottingham University composite 2x sculled well and managed to overtake a number of crews and keep a strong rhythm going to win the mens senior 2 event by 4 seconds from London RC and finish an excellent overall 3rd place. Carl Delaney was a GB junior international for Maidenhead in 2006 and Phil is competing to be the number one GB junior sculler for 2008.
Sophie Delaney and Ally Brooks put up another good performance to not only win their event but to win by 20 seconds ahead of other GB junior international athletes. This was an excellent result for the Delaney family, Sophie winning WJ18 2x sculls and with her brother Carl winning mens S2 2x sculls with Phil Clapp this was a proud moment for their parents.
Vicky Sims and Natalie Trinder also had an excellent scull to win their S2 class by 11 seconds against tough opposition from Weybridge RC.
Gabby Watson and Fifi Bevan still only WJ15 did exceptionally well to move up to WJ16 level and win. Watson steered an excellent course which is not easy to do on the tideway.
Other Performances:
Aimee Campbell and Katy Lion finished in 8th place in a time of 15min 17s.
In the Womens Junior 16 division Maidenhead’s other top WJ16 crew of Sophie Wedlake and Carmel Bevan finished in a credible 3rd place in a time of 15min 22s despite being hampered by a composite crew ahead of them.
In the mens Vet coxless pairs events we saw two Maidenhead crews battle it out on the course for top spot for Maidenhead Vets. The result was Gareth Jones and Ken Bedwell won this duo and finished the course in 15min 40s with Steve Janish and Piers Alington completing the course in 15min 59s.
Maddie Reynolds rowing in WJ18 2- for Shiplake was joined by Aimee Broadbent of Maidenhead and they rowed well to finish the division in 10th position in a time of 17min 5s.
A big thank you to our boat sponsors who include GCX, AP Printers, Bevans, Sportsmatch and Michael Shanly Trust. |
