British Junior Rowing Championships

Given the huge scale of this event, our final tally of 1 x Gold 1 x Bronze, 2x fourth, 2 x 6^th a seventh and an eight position is a great tally for Great Marlow School.

This major national regatta is normally the weekend after we break up but just occasionally it is early enough for us to report on before the end of term. Reflective of the fact that rowing is now the second most popular team sport after football in this country, the entry for this year’s regatta was bigger than ever with almost 1000 crews racing over the three days.

The GMSBC squad  went up  to the National Water Sports Centre  at Holme Pierrepoint Nottingham to compete  at these Championships and had a great weekend. Due to the forecast of extreme  heat, the organisers decided to abandon semi finals and select  A, B and C finals etc on the time trial results. While this was a reasonable solution it doesn’t tend to suit our squad, who seem to perform better in a side by side contest than  just pulling hard in a vacuum of a time trial.

As regular readers will know, I can get carried away with intricate stroke by stroke accounts of the exciting races, but I will save you this time with just the one. Our top boys pair of Henry Gavin and Hugo Loretto, already selected as ‘The England’ pair, lined up on the start-line as favourites in their final. They have always had a fast start and so with 250m gone they could have been forgiven for being a bit panicky when they were lying in 4^th place. However, it quickly became clear that the rest of field had blitzed the start, in an attempt to stay with them meaning that over the next 25 , the GMS pair moved through the  field to cross the first marker at 500m in first place. From there they looked cool , long and efficient and proceeded to move away from the field and by half way had over a length of open water on 2^nd position. They were in command and although the Pangbourne pair made a significant push over the last 500m to claim silver , they were never a threat to the GMS boys.

Bronze for the Year 11 Boys Four was expected and they did what was needed.

The Girls’ Quads were actually the big success story of the regatta with both the J15 (Year 10s) and the J18 ( Sixth Form) Quads coming fourth in their respective events. The Quads for the girls is definitely the blue riband event and both crews performances reflects the training and commitment they have shown over the last couple of months. We have very high hopes for both these crews next year.

Congratulations to all our competitors, we’re very proud of their commitment to the sport and how they represent our school.