Bobmore Lane, Marlow, Buckinghamshire SL7 1JE
Telephone - 01628 483 752
Company Registration No.07690054

Head of the River Successes

On 17th October, GMSBC took part in a Head of the River race with Borlase and The Royal Grammar School. The event was spread over three divisions to accommodate the 77 entries in different classes. With all the trials and tribulations of 2019/20 season, this was the first race against our local opposition for 18 months for the older rowers, and first race of any kind for our Year 9s.

Rowers arrived at 0700 for the first division, which was the Senior Boys’ squads racing in Single Sculls.

Historically, GMS knew that the top few Borlase scullers were very fast, with several looking for international glory next summer, so Mr Murison was very keen to see how the GMS team would perform against them. The top slot did go to Borlase, but Hugo Loretto (Year 12) came an impressive second, with Henry Gavin and Joel Hammond (Boys’ Captain) coming in 4th and 5th. Given the overall standard of the opposition this is an extremely promising start for the season ahead.

In the second division, our main entry was in the Senior Girls’ Single Sculls. Any rowing expert who suggests you need to be tall and powerfully built to be a good rower clearly never told Anna Bradley or Ruth Rackstraw. Against an impressive looking squad from Borlase (RGS not having any athletes of the required gender), the GMS girls took them apart with Anna 1st, Ruth 2nd, and Natasha Stewart, the newly appointed Ladies Captain of Boats, 3rd.

In the final division we had Year 10 Coxed Quads and Year 9 Octos. The Year 10 girls have an established track record of winning most of their races and did not disappoint with a commanding victory over SWB. The event was a test to see if the Year 10 boys, who returned from lockdown twice the height they were last March, had a seriousness in their approach to training and being coached. There were five other quads racing and, while a long time ago, SWB had beaten GMS at their last encounter. On Saturday, the boys rowed marvellously and won their event by 8 seconds from the nearest Borlase quad, which in turn was some way ahead of the rest of the field.

In the Octos, our Year 9s, having not been on the water at all last year were understandably not river-experienced, however, their performance was cohesive. The honours were evenly split between Borlase and GMS: the girls almost overtook the Borlase crew that had started half a minute ahead; the  boys lost to a very big looking crew from SWB. Both crews were missing some key athletes so Mr Murison is sure they will improve with experience and time.

Altogether, the day on the river was really enjoyable, with some wonderful results the club can be very proud of.

Highslide for Wordpress Plugin