This year’s draw for the J16 quads features only two schools, Queen’s Park High School and King’s School Chester. Both very strong northern rowing schools often competing against one another, promising some good racing.
Queen’s Park High School
Although they are up against five crews from King’s School Chester, Queen’s Park High School have had recent success at Ross regatta winning the W J18 1x, J15 2x, J18 2x and J14 4x+ events. Queen’s park boats a large and competitive squad also competing at the North West Junior Time Trial recently and sending an impressive 55 athletes to the English indoor rowing championship and bringing back a hoard of medals comparative to their squad size. QPHS set a very quick time when they last competed in this event, missing out on the win to King’s School Chester by only 4 seconds and finishing in a time of 19:52.4.
King’s School Chester
King’s School Chester offers a very strong squad this year with 5 quads competing in the J16 event. Last year’s J16 quads offered some very good results at National schools this year coming 5th in the A final beating Magdalen college school by a significant margin of 10 seconds and narrowly missing out on fourth place. King’s School Chester hold the standing title from the last Chester Long Distance Sculls event in 2018 where they set the fifth fastest time of the day, coming in at 19:48.2.
Prediction
Although both schools offer strong crews, I think King’s School Chester are the likely winners, often beating Queen’s Park High School, but importantly, with both crews racing on their home stretch, the J16 4x- is certain to be a local derby.
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