With the Pairs Head having been cancelled, there is more to be guessed in terms of how the senior girls’ sweep has progressed since the inaugural Junior Women’s Eights event at Henley Royal. Since the summer these squads have returned to sculling with a vengeance, and with GB Trials being kickstarted this month, hopefully their sweep skills will have followed suit.
Henley RC
Knocking up five wins at Wallingford Long Distance Sculls recently, Henley have certainly made a strong start to the season. One such winner is E. Wild, who rowed in the winning WJ18 double at Wallingford and strokes Henley’s four at the weekend — I’m willing to bet more winners will be in the lineup, too. Nevertheless, we haven’t seen any sweep from this club since they were knocked out of the semifinals of the Henley JWEs, by their longstanding rivals Headington no less, so whether they have learned from the summer’s mistakes remains to be seen.
Lady Eleanor Holles
It’s a similar story here: with great success in the WJ18 4x- at Wallingford, having won both the first and second places, it’s clear that LEH has started their head season with a bang. LEH also got to the semi finals at Henley, so a gear shift in their sweep boats isn’t unlikely either. Something else both these crews should keep in mind when comparing Fours Head to Wallingford LDS: as well as the change in discipline, Fours Head is a considerably longer race at 6.8km as opposed to Wallingford’s 4km, so we’ll see how the crews will adapt to the three-times difference in distance.
Latymer Upper Sch
Another competitor at Wallingford LDS here, but with more varied success. Latymer put out a veritable fleet of singles, with F Humphrey Weeks, who placed 4th behind a Henley and two Headington scullers, stroking the four this weekend. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had focused on both singles and sweep boats, so they could be one to watch.
Other crews racing include Tideway Scullers, Putney High, and Hinksey Sculling School.
Predictions
With their successes at Wallingford, LEH and Henley will be the ones warring for the top spot, but I have an inkling that it’ll be LEH that comes out victorious. I reckon Latymer and Tideway Scullers won’t be too far behind, either. Given the distance of the course and what little we’ve seen of the crew’s sweep skills of late, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if the script was flipped and we had some unexpected placings.
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