With selections at final trials complete, the top British junior athletes will be preparing for Coupe and Junior World Championships whilst this event takes place this weekend. Furthermore, Home International Regatta coincidentally falls on the same weekend as British Championships this year, and this means that those junior athletes selected to represent the England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland teams will be forced to scratch their boat from racing at Brit Champs. This means that we could see slightly less competitive racing than what we are usually used to at this event, and this means that we could see some clubs and crews receiving silverware who normally wouldn’t be considered at the top of the junior field.
Claires Court School
After Claires Court’s major successes at Henley Royal Regatta over the last two years, you would normally expect this crew to be exceptionally fast. However, this season, Claires Court’s top quad only reached the Thursday of Henley Royal Regatta following a C final finish at National Schools’ Regatta, emphasising how much they have struggled this season. Furthermore, this crew appears to be a combination of athletes from their B and C quads, with Jackson racing in Claires Court’s B quad at Henley qualifiers and the other three athletes representing the school in their C quad. As they usually have a reasonably small squad, I would expect these athletes in this boat to be from a number of age categories, and based on their performances throughout the season with their B and C quads failing to qualify for the Fawley challenge cup, I think they will struggle to perform at this event.
Gloucester Hartpury
With wins in the Diamond Jubilee for the girls at Hartpury College year upon year, it appears the coaches at Gloucester have decided to finally step up the boys program to match the usual strength and depth of the girls program at the club. The club have two quads entered into this event this season, and the supposedly stronger quad has two athletes from Hartpury’s top quad at Henley Royal Regatta, with one of the other two athletes supposedly trialling for the GB team. James Herring and Stonehouse reached the quarter finals of the Fawley Challenge Cup this season and they will be accompanied by two athletes from the club’s B quad, who despite not managing to qualify for the Fawley will have a great amount of skill and experience from racing throughout the year. With a lot of the toughest competition from Henley Royal not present at this event, such as Maidenhead and Windsor Boys, I would expect Gloucester’s top crew to comfortably secure themselves a medal this coming weekend.
Leander Club
The majority of athletes from this crew were entered under “Star and Arrow Club” at the recent Henley Royal Regatta and managed to progress to the Thursday, an impressive performance, especially considering this wasn’t Leander’s top crew. They managed to beat St Paul’s quad, which consisted of the top athletes from their second eight. Miles Devereux, Briggs and Hoselbarth will be joined by Pikelis, who replaces the stroke Joe Murphy from this combination. This crew should have the power, technical abilities, skills and efficiency to put down an impressive performance this coming weekend, and if they execute their race plan perfectly, they have a good chance of achieving a top three finish and securing themselves some medals.
Lea Rowing Club
Three out of four athletes who represented Lea in the Fawley Challenge Cup at Henley Royal will continue to represent their club in the quadruple scull entered into this event. Den Dulk, Ferraro and Powell successfully managed to qualify for the Fawley this season and they should be extremely proud of this impressive achievement, however an early elimination on the Wednesday to Globe Rowing Club would indicate that this crew lacks the finesse that the most competitive junior quads display when racing. Therefore I think this crew will struggle to find a top three finish in this category, however an A final finish is certainly feasible and they should be able to defeat competition such as Claires Court, Derby, Newark, Northwich and Rob Roy.
Warrington Rowing Club
All four of the athletes in this quad also represented their club at Henley Royal Regatta where they reached the quarter finals of the Fawley Challenge Cup, and narrowly missed out to a particularly strong crew representing Leander Club. With this crew only being a length and a half off Leander’s top crew over a 2112m course, I would expect them to be dominant over the 2000m course at the National Water Sports centre in Nottingham in whatever the conditions, as they have shown their success down the course of Henley Royal Regatta, between the booms, where crews must race in large amounts of wash due to passing cruisers and launches. This crew will be aiming for a gold medal and to be standing in the centre of the podium this weekend, and that certainly won’t be an unrealistic aim and proposition for this crew to achieve.
York City Rowing Club
York City’s quadruple scull finished third in the C final at National Schools’ Regatta this season, and then swapped out one member of their crew moving forward to Henley Royal Regatta, where they reached the Thursday of the Fawley Challenge Cup, losing out to overall winners Windsor Boys. The crew entered into this event at Brit Champs is the same combination as the crew entered into the Fawley Challenge Cup and these four athletes will therefore be looking to emulate their performance all season and will be looking to end their season on a high by achieving the highest possible position in this category. An A final finish for this crew is almost definitely on the cards, however I would say a top three finish may be slightly out of reach as they have been slightly off the pace of the top achieving crews entered in this category, such as Warrington and Gloucester Hartpury.
With major competition such as Windsor Boys, Maidenhead and Leander’s top quad missing from this category, it leaves the competition at this event much more open for the “top spot”, that all important gold medal position. I would predict Warrington to take a commanding lead over the rest of the field and secure themselves this first place position, with Gloucester Hartpury and Leander Club fighting it out in a close contest for the silver medal position.
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