Fours Head 2022 – Women’s Championship Coxed Four Preview

This weekend will see a return to the famous 6.8km course, and unsurprisingly some big rowing names are battling it out in the Women’s Championship Coxed Four event. With it still being relatively early in the season, a few of these clubs will be facing their first major race of the calendar, and as such will be looking to prove themselves as competition to keep an eye on.

Among the nine crews racing, university teams have dominated the entries, with Oxford Brookes, Oxford University, and Cambridge University represented by two crews each, so it will certainly be interesting to see how they fare in comparison to the clubs. Even though entries can be changed, and subs made before the event, making the crew lists speculative, we will surely see some exciting racing regardless.

Leander Club

First to set off is the crew from Leander, who, after winning the event last year, will be looking to retain their title. The club as a whole is coming off the back of a very successful year, which culminated in one of their women’s eights making it to the final of the Wargrave Challenge Cup at HRR earlier this summer. Even more recently, their women’s eight won the Women’s Championship Eight event at the prestigious Head of the Charles, suggesting they’ve carried last year’s momentum into this new season.

Represented by a large, high-performing cohort in the first stage of GB trials earlier this month, they again demonstrated the depth of this year’s squad, with Chloe Brew, who is set to be competing in this crew, placing an impressive fifth at the 5k time trial. Alongside Brew, Emily Ford and Rebecca Edwards also competed at the Tokyo Olympics and they are joined by Lauren Irwin and Morgan Baynham-Williams in the coxing seat, boasting an enviable set of achievements among them.

All of their individual results and the overall club’s recent, strong performances highlight this crew as a particularly strong entry, one which will no doubt set a high bar for those following it.

Vesta RC

This weekend, Vesta will certainly be hoping to prove themselves on their home stretch again, after coming away with first and second in the women’s championship pairs event at Pairs Head just last month. They, too, have performed on the international stage recently, coming away with a gold medal in the Women’s Club Coxed Fours at Head of the Charles – with such a recent win in the four under their belts, they will no doubt have confidence in the run-up to the race.

Oxford Brookes University BC

As one of the leading university rowing programmes, Brookes continually trains highly competitive athletes, and it is unlikely that their entries into this year’s coxed four event will be any different. While they did have some outstanding athletes at the GB trials time trial in early November, it seems as though Fours Head will be the first major race for their women’s squad this season, and so it will be exciting to see how their two entries perform.

Thames RC

Historically strong and celebrating a win in the Wargrave Challenge Cup at HRR this year, Thames is yet another club whose women’s side will be facing their first major race of the season at Fours Head. While I therefore can’t provide much insight into this specific crew, we can be sure that they will use the home stretch advantage and be a serious contender.

Oxford University Women’s BC

Alongside the rest of the event, it will also be interesting to see how the contingency from Oxford performs in comparison to Cambridge, as this race is the first time this season that the two universities are in direct competition with one another ahead of the Boat Race in 2023 which is run on the same stretch as Fours Head.

For OUWBC, however, this weekend will not be their first race of the season, as they recently competed at Upper Thames Autumn Head, where they entered a winning coxless four, as well as three, relatively evenly matched coxed fours, which ended the day with some of the fastest times in their category. As their results at UTAH suggest, this year’s squad appears to be a very competitive one, and their entries are, without a doubt, ones to keep an eye on.

Cambridge University BC

As the current champions of both the women’s and the women’s reserve Boat Race, CUBC will be looking to re-establish themselves early on as the favourites for next year. With one eye on the rest of the entries, and another fixed firmly on the dark blues, Cambridge will definitely be offering up some good competition.

Prediction

At such an early point in the season, it’s particularly hard to write definitely about predictions, although I would place my bets on the Leander crew to take the top spot. Given their renowned pedigree, a Brookes or the Thames crew could be in contention for the other podium spots, although they certainly are up for grabs for any one of the other strong entries.

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Caitlin Bond

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