Holders: Oxford Brookes University
Entries: 4
The biggest entry for The Grand since 2016 with crews from Australia, the USA, China and Great Britain.
Great Britain, racing as Oxford Brookes & Leander Club, were winners of the 1st World Cup in Belgrade in May. Not only did they win, they did so in crushing form by over 10 seconds, the largest ever margin of victory for a Men’s Eight at a World Cup. The crew is unchanged from the line-up that won in Belgrade (with the exception of the cox) with Rory Gibbs at bow, Morgan Bolding at 2, Dave Bewicke-Copley 3, Sholto Carnegie 4, Charlie Elwes 5, Tom Digby 6, James Rudkin 7, Tom Ford at stroke and Henry Fieldman coxing. Fieldman, Rudkin, Ford and Elwes remain from the crew that won bronze in Tokyo. Carnegie was in the M4- that just finished out of the medals at the Olympics. Tom Digby made his senior international debut in Belgrade and is a former U23 World Champion. Digby and Bewicke-Copley were in the Oxford Brookes crew that won this event in 2021.
Rowing Australia raced at the second World Cup this month, taking the silver medal behind Germany. They are quite a young crew with three members of the Tokyo Olympic team returning. Angus Widdicombe and Simon Keenan were in the M8 that finished sixth and Sam Hardy raced the M2- that came tenth. Five of the crew made their senior international debuts at the second World Cup in Poznan, Ben Canham is a former U23 World Champion from the BM4+ that won gold in 2019. Jackson Kench and Rohan Lavery also raced on the U23 team in 2019 and Henry Youl finished fifth in the U23 BM4+ in 2017. The final member of the crew is Patrick Holt from the University of Queensland; he raced in the Australian U21 crew at the 2018 Trans-Tasman Regatta. The Australians will have been pleased with their silver behind the new-look German Eight in Poznan, and should they come up against the Brookes/Leander crew they will act as a useful benchmark for the British who have yet to face their nemesis from Germany.
Henley will see the first appearance this season of a US M8, racing as California Rowing Club & Penn Athletic Club Rowing Association. All of this crew (bar the cox) raced at the second World Cup. Chris Carlson, Andrew Gaard, Michael Knippen and Piete Quinton all raced in the M4- that won bronze behind Australia and the Netherlands. The rest of the crew is made up of the two M2- that raced the World Cup. Mike Clougher and Andrew Leroux finished tenth and Michael Grady and Justin Best won bronze. The stern pair of Best and Grady raced in Tokyo (Grady fifth in the M4- and Best fourth in the M8). Carlson and Gaard were both members of the U23 BM8 that won the world Championships in 2018 and then silver in 2019. They made their senior debuts in 2019 as part of a young US M8 at the final World Cup, winning the B-Final. Knippen, raced in the M4X in 2018 and 2019 and Quinlon is a former junior bronze medallist. Le Roux made his senior debut in Poznan having won a bronze medal at the Junior worlds of 2016 and is a former Princeton varsity rower. Clougher raced in the M4- in 2018 finishing 13th. It’ll be interesting to see how this new-look US 8 fares especially as they won’t have had a huge amount of time together in the boat.
The final crew racing is the Chinese National Rowing Team. As with the USA, this crew all raced at the second World Cup but split into two M4-‘s. Their top four at both Belgrade and Poznan took bronze at WC1 and fourth at WC2, Wenlei Li, Xianfeng Chen, Qiao Xu and Pengpeng Cai. The other half of the crew are Ruihao Su, Gaoxing Ji, Binghui Cui and Lui Wei. They finished 11th in the M4-. As an eight they raced at the Belgrade World Cup finishing 3rd behind the British at the Netherlands. Probably the weakest of the four boats in the event.
So who do I think will win…..you have to favour the home team in this event, the British looked superb in Belgrade and also have the advantage of being an established unit, all of whom have significant Henley experience, and a home crowd willing them home.
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