With five boats entered into the Women’s Junior Champ Fours category this weekend, I expect it to be closely contested. As we are still quite early into the 2018/2019 head season, these crews appear to be newly composed combinations of rowers, with many of the boats containing half of the experienced fours from last year with the addition of new, possibly less-experienced, rowers. These early races will provide a great chance for the crews to see where they stand among other clubs before we hit the bigger races in early 2019.
Putney High School (A Zedda James) – As the only crew to have achieved results as a four so far this season, when they won at Bedford Small Boats Head earlier in October, it stands them in good stead coming into this race. At Bedford, their competition was made up of five Lea fours and whilst it is difficult to tell who featured in each of these crews, it gives us a good idea of how they will perform against the Lea crew next Saturday.
Kingston (E Quin)-Assuming that this crew is composed of the same rowers that made up Kingston’s WJ16 4+ crew last year, this crew will provide a very strong row. Along with winning in this boat at the GB vs France match, they have been undefeated for almost 2 years. They won Schools Head in a new course record, won the National Schools’ Regatta and won Women’s Henley in a new course record. They were very successful last season and I imagine this will continue into this season. The only question for this crews ability comes from competing against slightly older rowers which make up some of the other crews but I imagine this will not affect them and they will finish this race strongly amongst the other boats.
Henley (P Snowden)– This four is made up of part of the Henley WJ18 4- boat which placed first at British Rowing Junior Championships along with those who composed the winning WJ18 8+, possibly with rowers from the eight which placed fourth in this same category. The rowers who make up this boat have proved their experience and strength as sweep rowers and will certainly excel in this race.
Lea RC (M Foxell)– At British Rowing Junior Championships, an eight containing at least some of these rowers placed second, close behind the Henley crew. They also competed in fours with the W J16 4+ placing first in the A Final. On top of this, it is likely that they were among the Lea fours competing at Bedford Head against Putney. This gives us a good idea of the success of this crew in comparison to the other fours in this category. M Foxell also made up part of the GB crew against France over the summer and will provide a very strong performance.
Latymer Upper School (C Lloyd)– It is difficult to find results for this crew, especially in a sweep boat, however, in general, Latymer has been successful in sweep boats and I imagine that this crew will be no exception. Although they are the most unknown of the crews, they also have a lot to prove and so I would imagine we will see a strong result from this four too.
All the crews are very closely matched, although the Latymer crew is obviously the less proven crew out of this category. It is difficult to say how the podium will play out but I feel like we could see Kingston take the winning position with the Henley and Putney High School crews coming in to take 2nd and 3rd respectively.
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