Heading off first at this year’s Fours Head will be the Men’s Championship Quad category. Some the country’s finest scullers including Olympic medallists and Under 23 World Champions will battle it out for the win and with it the fastest time of the day.
Leander Club ‘B’
Starting first in this category will be Leander’s top quad in this event, comprised of Harry Leask, John Collins, Tom Barras and Seb Devereux, a boat practically overflowing with achievements at both national and international level as well as a vast wealth of experience. Leask and Barras were both part of Team GB’s silver medal winning men’s quad at this year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics, producing arguably GB’s best race of the rowing regatta. This is on top of Tom’s bronze medal in the single at the 2017 Senior World Championships in Florida. As well as this, John Collins, alongside Graeme Thomas battled his way to a hard-fought fourth place at Tokyo 2020, narrowly missing out on a medal on top of countless World Cup and World Championship medals over John’s long and successful career up to date. Seb Devereux reached the final of the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta this year and also became an Under 23 World Champion in 2017 in the double alongside Sam Meijer. It goes without saying that this crew is of a calibre rarely seen in domestic racing and will be a certain contender for the win.
Nottingham RC/Tideway Sc. Sch/ Twickenham RC
If Leander Club ‘B’ is the present in terms of GB men’s sculling, then this composite crew including George Bourne and Sam Meijer is the future. With a total of six Under 23 World Championship titles between them, these scullers have dominated the international pathway leading up to Senior rowing, and will be looking to assert themselves into the senior team in the coming year and onwards towards the Paris Olympiad. Meijer won three Under 23 golds in ’17 ’18 and ’19 as well as another gold and a silver at the Junior World Championships. Bourne won gold in Florida with Meijer in the Under 23 World Championships in the men’s quad event, also winning Fours Head in 2019 in this very same event as well as winning the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup at Henley in 2019. I fully expect this crew of ‘young guns’ will give Leander a serious run for their money for the win in this event.
Leander Club ‘C’
Leander’s second boat in this event will be seeking to place as close to their ‘A’ crew as possible. Expect this crew headed by Matt Brigham to produce some considerable speed, with Joel having won the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup with Leander in 2017, he’s been a reliable athlete for their sculling programme for a number of years now and will be looking to use his experience to guide his younger crew-mates down this course from the bow seat. On top of this, Matt Brigham beat Olympic Champion Mahe Drysdale in a historic race at Henley Royal Regatta 2019 in a heat of the Diamond Challenge Sculls. The fact Leander have such high-quality rowers in their ‘B’ boat for this event in a testament to the strength of their men’s sculling programme that they’ve built over the last few years.
Prediction
I believe that the Olympic and World Championship medallists in the Leander Club ‘B’ crew will take the win, however I think the composite crew of Nottingham, Tideway and Twickenham will be far closer than others may think and I do not see them winning as an impossible feat. I predict that Leander Club ‘C’ will claim third behind these two crews, but the battle for the win will be epic to watch.
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