Photo credit: World Rowing/Benedict Tufnell
It’s close to crunch time for the senior national team.
The Olympics looms, and final team selection is just around the corner. Usually, athletes who raced at the World Championships over the summer are exempt from November Trials; in an Olympic Selection year, that’s not the case. The race for seats at the biggest rowing event of them all is well and truly on.
Because of river conditions in Boston, Lincolnshire, the GBRT November Trials were held this year right at the national training centre in Caversham. To mimic the long-distance format of Boston, the singles and pairs racing did two runs down the 2k track, with a timed spin between them. The results indicate a very tight field, with many athletes – including those currently not training at the national centre – making some strong plays, and possibly putting themselves in contention for Olympic seats at this late stage.
I’ll look at each boat class in this review, giving an in-depth look into the results, and analysing how things may be shaping up off the back of these trials.
M2-
The sweep squad, fresh off the back of one of its most successful World Championships, is filled to the brim with stellar athletes, and the tight spread of finishes here will no doubt make selection a real headache.
The standout performance has to go to the overall winners, Jacob Dawson and Sholto Carnegie. Both Tokyo Olympians and both fixtures of the M8+ last season, they’ve made a serious case for themselves here – particularly impressive given Dawson’s relatively recent comeback from injury. Behind them were the ever-impressive Freddie Davidson and Matthew Aldridge, both double world champions in the M4-. The first real upset came from the third-place finishers: Will Stewart and James Robson. Stewart lost his seat in the M4- this year through seat racing and was the spare man at the World Championships; Robson has been in and out of the Caversham circuit for a few years, but has yet to find a consistent spot on the senior team. This result may well change that, and at an absolutely pivotal time. Undoubtedly Stewart and Robson will now find themselves in serious contention for Olympic seats again – the question is whether they can rise to that challenge.
Elsewhere, Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Morgan Bolding had a strong run to take fourth, with both having lost their original pairs partners to illness and injury (Tom George and Rory Gibbs respectively). Sam Nunn and David Bewicke-Copley had a good row to take fifth; Nunn, like Stewart, was seat raced out of the M4- for last season and ended up a spare. Bewicke-Copley had been a mainstay of the 8+ in 2022, but an injury put him on the sidelines last season. This result should help them both get firmly back in the running.
It’s worth mentioning that not all of the established Caversham athletes featured in the top half of the finishers, and that will likely be difficult to reckon with. World champions David Ambler and Oli Wilkes, both world champions in the M4-, finished behind two non-Caversham pairs (Sam Bannister and Matt Rowe, and Dan Graham and Douwe de Graaf). Ambler and Wilkes will be disappointed to come in behind less established athletes, but will back themselves in a seat racing environment. Bannister and Rowe, who probably assumed that their time would have to wait until Los Angeles 2028, will take a lot of confidence from their result – as will Graham and de Graaf.
Charlie Elwes and Tom Digby were a little off the pace here. The pair have a few World Championships wins between them now, having been in the middle of the eight for a couple of seasons. Their result here – 11th – will trouble them. Their forte, however, is certainly raw power, and the M8+ suffered pretty significantly without Elwes earlier in the season, while he was injured. Despite a tough result here, I think they’ll still feel confident looking forward to the next few months, and the next set of trials.
There were a handful of other impressive pairs here of athletes not currently part of the senior national squad. If nothing else, it bodes incredibly well for the future of GB men’s sweep beyond the current Olympiad. What the selectors will do moving forward – whether they will bring several new athletes into the fold for the last round of trials – is anyone’s guess. Certainly, it seems that the senior sweep side is not closed to newcomers, despite pretty much every current senior team athlete being a world champion from last season. If that doesn’t suggest that we’re on for something special in 2024, I don’t know what does.
W1X & LW1X
The women’s squad doesn’t have a sweep section in November, so all current senior team athletes and hopefuls were pitted against each other in the single scull – openweight and lightweight alike. The race was – predictably – dominated by the scullers. Out front was young talent Lauren Henry, who came out on top at pretty much every trial last season, and ended up at bow of the W4X at the World Championships that took GB’s first world gold in the boat class since 2010. Henry is an unbelievable talent, and at only 21, has a very bright future indeed in the sport. Her crewmates from the quad Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw also showed their pedigree, coming home third and fifth respectively.
Tokyo veteran Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne returns to the scene after the birth of her son back in 2022. She took second at the trials – an incredible feat, made all the more impressive given that her first race since the Olympics was just this past summer. A fixture of the W4X for the Tokyo Olympiad, Hodgkins Byrne is certainly at home in the bigger sculling boats, and may well make a golden combination even stronger. Emily Craig and Imogen Grant had brilliant sculls to come home fourth and sixth overall, constantly raising the bar for what seems achievable for lightweights in an openweight field. Their dominant LW2X from last season looks set to continue on to Paris 2024, and is probably one of GB’s best prospects for gold. It would be a bittersweet moment, considering it might be the last we see of the discipline on the big stage.
Other established scullers were scattered in the top half of the field, including Lucy Glover, who represented GB in the W1X at the 2023 World Championships, and Kyra Edwards and Saskia Budgett, the GB W2X from the championships. Edwards and Budgett will be disappointed not to have finished higher up, but their strength as a combination is clear, and they’ll be positive looking ahead to the next rounds. There were some very impressive performances from outsiders, however, that will have turned the heads of the selectors. At the forefront was Jenny Bates, the young Brookes athlete who spends most of her time in sweep boats. Her seventh-placed performance here is pretty remarkable – particularly if she wants to continue to trial as a sweep athlete. Leander athlete Rebecca Wilde also had a great showing to take ninth, coming out ahead of a number of Caversham athletes.
Plenty of Caversham sweep athletes also performed well here, though it’s difficult to know what bearing this trial will have on selection for the sweep squad. Certainly, the top performers from that group – athletes like Rebecca Edwards, Esme Booth and Heidi Long – will be satisfied with a competitive finish in a sculling field.
It’s worth noting that this was a pretty tight field, particularly in the middle of the pack. Once again, the selectors will be left with a headache. Plenty of young athletes have really turned it on for this last set of trials pre-Paris, and it will be interesting to see if any of them can win seats at the pivotal moment.
M1X
Finally, the M1X showcased some incredibly strong scullers, with the top three athletes narrowly separately. Tom Barras, stroke seat of the M4X from last season, led the field, followed by crewmate George Bourne. Callum Dixon, the M4X’s bowseat, took third, with fourth going to yet another member of the 2023 M4X, powerhouse Matt Haywood. The M4X was a really strong combination that was devastated to narrowly miss out on a medal at Worlds; they’ll be back with a vengeance come Paris, buoyed by the fact that – for now – they are still the four fastest scullers in Britain.
Behind them was Cedol Dafydd, the young Welshman developed at Bath as part of the GB Performance Development Academy. Despite being relatively new to the sport compared to the veterans around him, he’s showing some serious speed, and may well now find himself in contention for Paris. Strong performances also came from Leander athlete Rory Harris, a World Cup medallist, and Aidan Thompson, part of the M2X from the 2023 World Championships which had a very difficult regatta.
With a much smaller batch of scullers to choose from, and a clearer top end, the selectors may well have an easier time with men’s sculling. That being said, the issue of Olympic qualification is pressing for the M2X and the M1X, so some very careful decisions will have to be made to maximise the chances of GB men’s sculling fielding more than just a quad in Paris.
Final thoughts
Across the board, the senior national team is looking very, very strong heading towards Paris. With a number of younger players making very convincing cases for themselves, and the old guard continuing to push the standard on, selection will be incredibly tight, and no seat is safe. While gold medals may well be the ultimate goal, for now these athletes will have only one thing on their mind: making the team in the first place. For now, Paris can wait.
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