With no international events for GB juniors in 2020 or 2021, for many scullers, this season is their first and last opportunity to earn a GB vest as a junior. The trial consisted of a 5km time trial on the water. The field was tightly packed with just 30 seconds separating the 3rd best sculler from the 30th best sculler. It was also great to see the top 15 scullers representing 14 different clubs.
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The winner was Stanford recruit and 2021 Indoor Rowing World Champion Meg Knight (Trentham Boat Club) – proof that performance on ergos does give you an advantage on the water. She was fastest on both halves of the course and was also nearly 12 seconds clear of her closest rival. She is likely to be one of the standout scullers this season and it will be interesting to see if she can maintain or even extend her advantage over the winter going into February trials.
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Ella Fullman of Wycliffe College Boat Club came second. She has already picked up wins this season in the single at Scullers’ Head and Nottingham Autumn Head, as well as winning the JW16 1x at the 2021 British Rowing Junior Championships – a very impressive repertoire, particularly so for a J17. Wycliffe look very strong overall, with six scullers qualifying and all placing in the top 40. This is in addition to their scullers that missed out because they were born between September and December. Wycliffe will certainly be a club to look out for at all future races.
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Third place went to Texas recruit and 2021 Henley Royal Regatta winner in the Junior Women’s Eight Isabelle Magee from Headington School Oxford Boat Club. Issie has been to many GB trials in the past, most notably coming fourth on bowside in the pairs matrix in the 2021 June trials.
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Another J17 sculler, Matilda Drewett, from Kingston Grammar School Boat Club placed fourth. This was perhaps a bit of a surprise result as we haven’t seen much of her racing in small boats. However, she was part of the KGS JW16 4x that placed fourth at the 2021 National Schools’ Regatta, second at Henley Women’s Regatta and first at the British Rowing Junior Championships. She was just 0.1 of a second faster than Elle Kadir of Warrington Rowing Club in fifth. It is great to see Warrington producing another fast sculler – they were very successful in 2015 and 2016 (when Tokyo Olympian Lucy Glover was a junior), but have not had as much success in recent years.
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They were closely followed by the winner of the JW18 1x at the 2021 National Schools’ Regatta, Laura Burton of Cambridge 99 Rowing Club, Lucy Thomson of Chester Rowing Club, Mia Vickerman of Shiplake College Boat Club, Ailish Harkin of Henley Rowing Club and Madeleine Greenstock of Surbiton High School Boat Club in the top 10. Of these results, it was perhaps a bit of a surprise to see that the highest placed Shiplake sculler was 8th, given their complete dominance of sculling last season. Henley also had several scullers competing. With their wins at Fours Head, they too could be the club to look out for this season.
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With the field so tightly packed, it will be interesting to see how everyone does at February trials. There is a real opportunity for many of these scullers to move up the rankings and represent GB in the summer. From a club point of view, Wycliffe and Henley seem to be the ones to look out for – especially as they have some very strong athletes who are ineligible due to their age. Overall, there were some excellent performances, and I’m very much looking forward to February.
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Steady Steight
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