While the Senior team started their Olympic campaigns with great success at the World Cup in Varese, the next generation of British Rowing made their way to the vacated Caversham for the final trials to make the national development and under-23 teams. Beyond that, this provides a great opportunity to put themselves in the early conversation for the next Olympiad with Los Angeles just four short years away.
Men’s Pair
The top honours in the men’s pair would go to Douwe De Graaf and Dan Graham of Leander Club. The top performing crew in this group at both of the previous trials this season, they were able to overcome an underwhelming finish in the time trial by winning both their fast semi and the A Final to take the spoils. In second place were club-mates Matt Rowe and Samuel Bannister who were alongside them in both of those races, finishing bow to stern with the champions.
In third place, flying the flag for Wallingford, was Matthew Heywood and James Doran of Oxford Brookes and Oxford Universities respectively. The strongest resistance against Leander domination of the development group, they have put themselves in a good position to earn selection for their senior world-level debuts later this season.
With the withdrawal of the favoured pair from Cambridge University, the field opened up for the under-23 crown and seizing this opportunity was Louis Nares and Toby Lassen of Oxford Brookes University as the only under-23 athletes to make the A-Final. Clubmates Fergus Woolnough and Jake Wincomb were the best of the rest, placing second in the B-Final and eighth overall ahead of Richard Hawes and Kai Schlottmann, who made it an all-Brookes top three in the under-23 division.
Women’s Pair
While there was only one U23 crew in the A Final in the men’s pairs, on the women’s side it was the opposite story. Amelia Standing and Juliette Perry of Leander Club were the only pairing not eligible for age group selection to make it into the draw for the six-wide final, and age would be to their benefit as they would emerge from a tight race with Philippa Emery of Leander Club and Jessica Martin of the University of London as victors. The two crews exchanged bowballs down the course with the experienced pairing of Standing and Perry moving in the last 500m to take the win by around a boat length.
Other standouts in the A Final, and all eligible to race at the U23 World Championships in August included Grace Richards and Olivia Hill of Oxford Brookes while Holly Youd of Newcastle and Anna Grace of Durham would put rivalry aside to finish as the third U23 and fourth overall.
Men’s Single
Through open trials systems, individual athletes can announce themselves onto the scene and no one did that better this weekend than Matt Long of Reading University. Having raced at the Junior World Championships in 2022, Long trialled as a lightweight in last year’s process and dropped out prior to the February trials. This year he placed fourteenth overall and the sixth U23.
This weekend though, he made his mark on the senior scene. Fastest in all three rounds of racing, the nineteen-year-old upset many more established names on the British rowing scene. Fastest among them was Aiden Thompson of Twickenham Rowing Club, who led the field for most of the final but was unable to respond to Long’s late burst of speed and finished open water behind the young gun from Kingston.
Third overall and the second U23 was Stephen Hughes. Likely to be disappointed to not take the age group crown, he can take solace in being the fastest sculler from Leander, beating the event favourite Rory Harris down into fourth.
Rounding out the U23 podium was Josh Matthews of Edinburgh University, Long’s crewmate at the 2022 Junior World Championship. Placing last in the A Final, he fought through a tight semi-final to get there and will be looking to upgrade his European U23 selection to a world-level vest.
Women’s Single
In making predictions, this event may have seemed the safest pick as Kathryn Mole has been the class of the field in this company for some time now, winning in February by more than ten seconds. However, races are not won on paper and the University of Birmingham sculler would only place fourth. Instead, the best results went to Jenny Bates of Oxford Brookes who led in Sunday’s final from post to post ahead of a talented field as she flew the flag for the new Performance Sculling Academy.
In second place was Freya Keto of Thames Rowing Club; she will be disappointed to come away second best in the final after posting the fastest times in both of the previous rounds. The Brown and Cambridge graduate will be hoping to earn her first international vest across the body of her performance though.
Relative to the development field, this was among the weaker of the four events for the under 23s, but Ellie Cooke laid down a respectable marker, placing fourth overall in representation of Reading University and the youngsters more generally. Winning the B Final was a second U23 in the form of Megan Knight, back from a year at Stanford University, racing in Leander Club pink while Rachel Bradley of Newcastle picked up 12th overall as the third age group sculler.
These athletes will now enter the crew formation stage as selectors model boats they may wish to put forward for the third World Rowing Cup in Poznan in June, as well as the younger athletes providing more information for selection towards the U23 World Championships in Canada in late August.
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