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As is so often the case at the close of the season, we have a heavily depleted field for the blue riband open event of the British Rowing Junior Championships. Three crews, all of whom hail from smaller boat clubs relative to the names that usually dominate this category. This gives a provincial player the chance to write their name into the history books and be crowned national champion.
Reading Blue Coat School
The obvious favourite here. This crew were 14th overall at the National Schools’ Regatta and got through a round at Henley Royal Regatta before losing out to eventual semi-finalists Radley College. They were also 11th at the Schools’ Head of the River and 2023 represents the senior squad’s strongest season on record. It would be fitting for them to end with a win and round off a brilliant year.
Nottinghamshire County RA/Nottingham & Union RC
This crew is four of the Union boat that were the fastest non-qualifiers for the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup combined with Cory Johnson and Joseph Smith, who finished fourth in Championship Pairs at the National Schools’ Regatta. It’s great to see the hotbed that Nottingham represents within rowing pooling their resources to try and win national silverware. I’m not sure they’ll have the speed to match Blue Coat but composite crews have that mercurial element to them – you never quite know what you’re going to get.
Claires Court School
Doubling up in the quad, this boat contains one of the ‘A’ quad from Henley Royal Regatta (Oliver Spence) and three of the lads who were in the ‘B’ entry. Joining them are Teddy Sinclair and Joe Brittain, who finished third in the ‘C’ final of Junior 16 Doubles at the National Schools’ Regatta. Not renowned for their sweeping status, Alex Richardson’s boys will be looking to upset one of the other two players.
Prediction
In a three-boat final, the job of predicting the outright winner gets much easier. I would expect Reading Blue Coat to take the win.
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