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Maidenhead Rowing Club entered 4 junior crews (including one composite crew) in this year's Marlow International Regatta, held at Dorney Lake, on Saturday 19th June. This prestige regatta is seen as a pre-cursor to Henley Royal Regatta for the senior crews and a top class regatta for Junior crews.
 
WJ14 4x+ WJ16 4x
A stunning performance was seen from Maidenhead's WJ14 coxed quad of Rebekah Kerns (13), Aimee Campbell (14), Alice Ancora (13), Chrissie Wright (14) with cox Owen Davies. In a straight 7 boat final, Maidenhead were drawn in lane 3 alongside Molesey Boat Club (National Schools Gold medal winners) in lane 2 and Surbiton High School (Bronze medallists at National Schools) drawn in lane 7. At the recent National Schools regatta held in May, this Maidenhead crew were not allowed to enter as they had two 13 year olds on board and the rules stated that athletes had to be a minimum 14 years of age. Going off the start at a fast pace Maidenhead were in 3rd position behind the leaders Molesey and Sir William Perkins, and ahead of Surbiton High School who were in 4th place. At 500m Maidenhead pushed hard and moved up into second place. At the 1000m mark Maidenhead pushed on again and went passed Molesey to take a half length lead. From this point onwards this young Maidenhead crew drew away with every stroke finishing a clear 1.5 lengths ahead of Sir William Perkins who just pipped Molesey Boat club on the line to take 2nd place. This was an excellent win against tough competition and now puts this Maidenhead crew up as the crew to beat at the National Rowing Championships in July.
Maidenhead's WJ16 quad of Charlotte Weeks (15), Laurian Pepper (16), Louise Entwistle (15) and Ally Brooks (14) again demonstrated how well they could race with 3 of these girls racing above their age group. Following their Bronze medal win at this age group at National Schools they sculled well to lead from the start and come home a comfortable 3 lengths ahead of Upper Thames RC.
Two of Maidenhead boys J14 squad - Sam Prosser and Mark Clover teamed up with Marlow RC and Claires Court School to race in an Octople. This was a pleasure to see as this composite crew led from the start and gradually drawing out a lead to about 2 lengths over established School crews from Latymer, Tiffin School, Westminster School and Radley Schools.
Our recently put together boys J16 quad of Sam Ashburner, Matt Best, Max Gerrard and Dave Jones did extremely well to win through to the finals. In the finals they had a good scull but had to settle for 2nd place less than half-a-length behind Walton/Royal Docks composite. These boys will be going on to race in the qualifiers for Henley Royal Regatta next week and are expected to keep improving over the coming weeks.
Maidenhead Men's squad entered an eight in the Senior 3 eights competition. The recently formed men's eight will be competing in the qualifiers for Henley Royal next week and took comfort in the fact that they managed to move from last position in the race, finishing 4th in their heat, only a short distance (1 sec) behind the important 3rd place to qualify them for the next round..
Summary of Marlow International Regatta wins:
|
Crew |
Category |
| Charlotte Weeks, Laurian Pepper, Louise Entwistle, Ally Brooks |
WJ16 4x |
| Rebekah Kerns, Aimee Campbell, Alice Ancora, Chrissie Wright, Cox: Owen Davies |
WJ14 4x+ |
| Marcus Clover, Sam Prosser, Jack Rider, Josh Cremin, Phil Clapp, Rubins Van der Valk + 2 boys from Marlow RC, cox: Anthony Toma |
J14 8x+ |
Billy Brooks
Captain - Juniors |
