Silver for Year 8 Boys at the Ball Cup

A weekend with plenty of action with both Bedford Regatta on Saturday and the Ball Cup on Sunday,

The highlights from Saturday were the Year 10 boys reaching the final in the Coxed Quad event. In their 6^th race of the day they faced Windsor Boys in the final. This was a repeat of last year’s final, and a tight race ended with Windsor winning by a length. The Year 9 girls also looked very strong and were leading when their steering broke causing them to crash and be knocked out of the competition. This was a shame because they were odds on favourites to win.

Sunday at Dorney lake started gloriously sunny and calm. Both the Year 8 and Year 9 boys raced well in the semi-final to qualify. In the final, the Year 8 boys had a very poor start and were towards the back of the field, but by half way they had found a strong rhythm and were moving fast towards the Bronze medal position. The crew alongside buckled under the pressure and shipwrecked, putting GMS in third place and with 250m to go they continued to close on the crews in front. With less than 50m until the line, another shipwreck in the second place crew took GMS into silver medal position.

The Year 9 Quad, gold medalists from last year, started off slowly, languishing in 5^th place for the first 500m. However, over the last half of the course they suddenly found some speed and moved quickly into fourth and were closing on third. However, their deficit from early in the race was just too great, and although they caught up some two lengths they missed the bronze by a few feet.

By now the wind had become strong, so sadly racing for the rest of the day was cancelled for the younger years meaning the girls did not have the chance to show what they could do.