Chester Long Distance Sculls kick-starts the new rowing season. Over the 5000m course, it is an event which enables athletes to showcase and use the skills they developed during the regatta season. In this case, Chester’s course requires competitors to manoeuvre around the multiple bends in the river and maintain a consistent rate and rhythm throughout the race. For these girls, it is potentially their first proper head season; expectations are high and this event will be interesting to spectate.
Nottingham & Union RC
A crew from Nottingham & Union absolutely smashed it at British Rowing Junior Championships 2019 on the Friday as a WJ14 4x+; bringing home a 2nd place medal, these girls show huge potential to follow in the footsteps of previous Nottingham & Union crews. For example, the WJ15 4x+ at British Rowing Junior Championships 2019 came 6th in the A Final. Perhaps the coaching will prove to be just as successful for this crew and they will bring home the gold.
Queen’s Park High School
Although these girls don’t have a national medal to their name from the quad yet, throughout the entirety of the 2018 head season, this quad brought home many medals. Winning both Northwich Autumn and Spring Heads, these girls anything but lack experience over long distances. Furthermore, they won at WJ14 at Agecroft Head in extremely challenging conditions. Maybe their endurance experience and advantage of home water will pull it through for this quad…
The Grange School (Hartford)
This quad has shown tantamount of potential for improvement at last year’s Northwich Autumn Head as a WJ14 4x+. Coming third in the extensive draw for their event was an achievement; it will be interesting to see if after a year of training whether these girls have improved enough to come back at QPHSRC and take the gold medal!
York City RC and Grosvenor RC
York City RC saw success across the board in the 2019 regatta season, including at Henley Women’s Regatta, their WJ16 4x- qualified. Potentially, this success may carry through to this crew. Additionally, Grosvenor have the added advantage of racing on home water, from steering to distance markers perhaps their knowledge of the course will tip the scales to prove their speed. Although we haven’t really seen these crews in the field before as a quad, that doesn’t go to say that they won’t surprise the crowd and bring home the medal…
Prediction
Although it would be easy to imagine that Nottingham & Union have this race and the medal after their sterling performance at Brit Champs, competing across 2000m takes a different kind of anaerobic fitness and explosive power compared to the stamina required for a 5000m race. Therefore, I would be tempted to predict that Queen’s Park High School will bring home the gold; their long-distance endurance racing success shown during last year’s head season presents exactly the skills needed for this difficult Chester Long Distance Sculls course.
Good luck to everyone competing on Sunday!
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