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The launch of the combined British Rowing Senior and Junior Club Championships has attracted some of the UK’s top crews, as well as entries from further afield. In the first Senior Championships since the event’s cancellation in 2019, each of these crews will be hoping to mark their names as the inaugural victors of their category.
Reading University
Reading University has a well-earned reputation for dominating the university sculling scene with its renowned sculling programme. Bronze medalists at BUCS Regatta in this double, next year’s boat club President, Joe Diver, will join Sam Cuthbertson to represent Reading for the last time this season. No strangers to sculling together, these two were also part of the quad that won gold in the open intermediate quads at BUCS Regatta and will be hoping to recreate this result on the same water.
Windsor Boys’ School/Windsorian RC
The Windsor Boys make up three of the sixteen doubles in the field, and I’m sure that they’ll be hunting the 1-2-3 this weekend. All of their crews contain only the pedigree of scullers, stacked with Henley Royal Regatta winners and international medallists.
Listed as the ‘A’ crew, the first double is a composite of Windsor Boys‘ and their alumni club, Windsorian RC. Old Boy Jack Cadwallader was part of the ‘B’ crew that faced off against their ‘A’ crew in the all-Windsor Boys final of the Fawley Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta in 2022. Don’t think that just because Cadwallader was part of the ‘B’ crew, he should be written off as a main contender: the following year he was selected to race the quad for Great Britain at the junior world championships, winning silver, and secured a coveted place at Brown University in the USA. Atticus Chute, the other half of the double, has celebrated an unbeaten regatta season in the Windsor Boys’ quad, winning the Fawley Challenge Cup at Henley Royal REgatta only two weeks ago. I’m sure he’ll be hungry to extend this streak as he represents Windsor Boys’ for the final time and continues to step out of his older brother’s shadow before he joins him at Princeton University, USA, next month.
Reading University student Charlie Ingham has chosen to represent his alma mater at this regatta, pairing with old schoolmate Max Bird. After his double and quad came up short against his fellow Reading teammates at BUCS Regatta, Ingham will make it his mission to outperform them this weekend. These two athletes came up against each other in the all Windsor Boys HRR Final in 2022, with Bird being part of the triumphant crew, and as the former rivals become crewmates, it will be interesting to see how they fare against their former teammates and the rest of the field.
The remaining Old Windsorian double is made up of Bryn Ellery and Isaac Workman, who were both part of the crew that celebrated back-to-back wins in the Fawley at HRR in 2017 and 2018 and have each won another Henley since. Both are seasoned professionals, having represented Great Britain as juniors and under 23s, and boast an abundance of medals from the Coupe de la Jeunesse and the Junior and Under 23 World Championships in sweep rowing and sculling disciplines. Despite being registered as the ‘C’ crew, I think that this more experienced crew could well overpower their fellow Windsorians this weekend.
Other Notable Mentions
Only 0.9 seconds separated the Sudbury Rowing Club and the Leeds University/York University composite at the England Rowing Home International Rowing Regatta trials last weekend. While these two crews may be out of reach of a medal, I’m sure that Leeds and York will have their sights set on overturning this result, and Sudbury will be doing everything they can to carry it forward.
After making the journey to the Junior Championships last year, where they won the B Final of the Open J18 2x, the double act from Calpe Rowing Club will be looking for a medal to make their journey from Gibraltar worth it.
Prediction
Many of these doubles have already had a chance to size each other up at the recent England HIRR trials, where Reading dominated, followed by Windsorian RC. After being scratched last weekend, the Windsor Boys/Old Windsorian composite are a somewhat unknown quantity and will certainly be a crew to watch out for. While I think the clubs most in contention for medals will be Reading University and the mixture of Windsorians, I expect it to be a dogfight between the smaller clubs for the remaining two spaces in the A Final, which in itself is a greatly respectable achievement.
Overall, I think that the gold medal will go to Reading University and the silver to the Old Windsorian crew made up of Ellery and Workman. I anticipate a clash between the remaining Windsorians for the final medal; it will be a toss-up between the slightly fresher talent of Chute and Cadwallader, though the greater experience of Bird and Ingham could prevail and see them through to the podium.
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