With Chester Long Distance sculls kicking off the J15 head race season, the 5km course will be battled out this year between three crews: Queen’s Park High School, Royal Chester RC and Grosvenor RC.
Grosvenor RC
The first local club, Grosvenor RC have had a fairly successful year, winning the Runcorn Juniors Regatta in a J13 2x, as well as Chester Regatta in both the J14 and J13 2x clearly showing this club’s junior programme is doing something right. The crew spans over two age categories, which could be a disadvantage against older, more experienced opponents but definitely does not rule them out as one to watch. Little more is known about the junior section of the club, making a detailed prediction difficult.
Royal Chester RC
Situated barely 100 metres from Grosvenor RC, the neighbouring boat club of Royal Chester RC is one of the oldest boat clubs in the UK. It is also worth noting the crew’s strong performance at the British Rowing Junior Championships this year, coming 3rd in the C final. Notably, they also won the J14 D final by a comfortable 6-second lead, which would have placed them 2nd in the C final. The club also won the J14 band 2 singles at Shrewsbury Regatta. If this is anything to go by, the crew from Royal Chester RC has some speed in the bank ready to be released on race day.
Queen’s Park High School
Situated opposite Royal Chester RC, Queen’s Park High School is one of only four state schools that have their own boat house where they encourage learning to row straight from year 7, leading to more competitive events from year 8 through to 6th form. Queen’s Park High School came 5th in the D final of the J14 4x+ at the British Championships, however, they claimed the victory last year against Trentham BC by nearly a minute, giving them a clear advantage over the other competitors.
Predictions
With all clubs used to training on the same stretch of water, there isn’t the usual key role of conditions playing into it. Even so, I would predict that the Royal Chester RC crew could take the win due to their better placements in the recent British Championships race. Queen’s Park High School have shown that they can already win the longer races though, and at 5km, it will be a race of both speed and stamina.
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