Maidenhead Rowing Club junior boys and girls excel at National Championships and bring home 3 Golds, 3 Silvers and 3 Bronze medals.

2nd Gold medal.
Gabby Watson & Kate Ryde continued their excellent form by winning their semi-final comfortably and then going on to demonstrate that they were by far the fastes WJ16 2x and moved out to a 3 length lead at the finish line from second place City of Oxford with the other 4 crews some further distance behind.

3rd Gold medal.
Tom Hope takes the prize for the greatest entertainment as he went off the start in style rating very high to take an early commanding lead over the other five finalists. Tom raised in rating again for teh final 250mtrs to move out to a commanding 3 lengths lead. Exhausted at the finish line Tom punched both hands in the air and carried out a victory roll in his boat, 5 seconds after the finish line Tom was swimming in the water with his boat but he had a big smile on his face after becoming National J17 sculling champion.

1st Silver medal.
Fifi Bevan, Megan Haines, Gabby Watson & Kate Ryde won this Silver medal in WJ16 quad sculls after winning their semi-final with ease. This was an excellent result bearing in mind that Gabby & Kate had earlier won the Gold medla in double sculls.

2nd Silver medal.
Gabby Watson must take credit for an excellent performance at this years National Championsips and taking no fewer than 3 National medals. Gabby sculled a well controlled race moving from 4th position at halfway and racing into Silver medal position at WJ18 level. Gabby still only WJ16.

3rd Silver medal.
Alice Ancora was selected to row in the GB junior quad and representing Maidenhead at National Championships in senior womens open quads she and her crew mates excelled to take a Silver medal at this senior level event.

1st Bronze medal.
Lexy Dobson, Fifi Bevan, Megan Haines and Henrietta Jenkins WJ16 coxed four with Adam Bowler as cox performed really well to win a place in the final and then go on to take a Bronze medal from this hotly contested event. LEH who were selected for GB France match as expected took Gold, Sir William Borlase took Silver and Maidenhead were just behind to take a Bronze. Again in this crew we had two athletes that doubled up Fifi Bevan and Megan Haines also took Silver in the WJ16 quads.

2nd Bronze medal.
Jack Beaumont then switched to rowing and teamed up with Alex Ryde to race in the under 18 coxless pairs. The pair won their semi final easily and knew that the final would be closer as they were racing boys from Maidstone who last year raced for Great Britain at the World Championships and Coupe de la Jeunesse and also a composite pair from Shiplake College and George Watsons College who are the selected Scottish pair for the Home Countries competition next week. In the final the boys started strongly and were overlapping with both of the Maidstone and composite crews when the steering foot in the boat broke with 250 metres to go. Without steering the boys had to try and steer with their oars while also trying to sprint for the line which left them with a huge disadvantage and they slipped back into 3rd place and won a very credible bronze medal. This was an excellent achievement for a pair that had only started training together in the week before the championships. An excellent result for this crew who really should have taken Silver and perhaps challanged for Gold if their steering footplate would not have broken.

3rd Bronze medal.
Ailsa Buck and Aimee Broadbent J18 girls from Maidenhead competed in WJunior 4- as a composite with Burway RC. And they had to make the final the hard way through the repecharge. In the final they showed determination as they had to raise they game in the final to move into medal contention. Race plan went well and with extra effort being put in as the last race of the day for Maidenhead RC they achieved their objective to win a National Championship Bronze medal after just a few outings together with Burway RC.

Other fine performances included:

Jess Kemple who achieved her objective which was to make the finals of WJ17 single sculls. This was probably one of the singnificant results from the club as Jess had only set this target 3 months ago and she has been working exceptional hard in training to achieve this. Making a National Championships was the objective and this was achieved.

Natalie Trinder and Ally Brooks had some tough opposition and difficult lane draws to deal with. They went on to reach the finals through the repacharge to take 5th place in Womens U23 double sculls.

Ailsa Buck and Aimee Broadbent competed in both the WJ 2x sculls and a WJ 4- as a composite with Burway RC. In the double they advanced through to the semi-finals and in the WJ4- they won a Bronze medal.

WJ15 2x of Zoe Broadbent and Emily Birch made it through to the finals and the WJ15 quad of Zoe Broadbent and Emily Birch were joined by Grace Alington and Hanna Wallace who also made the National Championships finals which was an improvement on last years performance.

We would just like to say thank you to the coaches who have worked with all these athletes to assist them in achieving their goals - Tom Jost, Ben Tipney, Orlando Fricker and Rob Davies.

Also a big thank you to Jamie Broadbent for assisting me by taking the large trailer and sorting out the Marque to protect the many junior athletes and parents from the weather. Maidenhead RC provided good business to Nottingham with over 50 people involved including athletes parents and coaches so a major operation to get everyone accomodation and keep fed and watered.

Billy Brooks & Eric Sims.

Jack Beaumont J15

Jack Beaumont and Alex Ryde in J18 Pair

JW 16 4+ bronze medallists at Nat Champs 2009

JW16 4x silver medallists Nat Champs 2009