Holders: Oxford Brookes University
Entries: 2
A straight final (the only one at the regatta) but one that promises to be a cracking race. It’s Great Britain (racing as Oxford Brookes & Leander) versus Australia. GB v Aus in the M4-, no matter what the venue, is always a spicy affair. The Stewards sees the winners of World Cup 1 take on the winners of World Cup 2.
Australia are the reigning Olympic Champions and come to Henley with three of that gold medal crew, Alex Purnell, Spencer Turrin and Jack Hargreaves. Stroking the crew is Joseph O’Brian who rowed in the Aussie M8 in Tokyo but was in the M4- that finished sixth in 2019 (which was Australia’s worst result in the M4- at a World Championships since 2010. They started their international season with a win in Poznan, beating the Netherlands by one second.
Great Britain also started their season off with a World Cup win, also beating the Netherlands (although their margin of victory was two seconds 😉). The coaches have made a couple of changes to the crew that won in Belgrade. Ollie Wilkes returns to the crew having been forced to miss racing in Belgrade due to illness. Matt Aldridge moves across from the M2- he raced in Belgrade to join the four replacing Lenny Jenkins. Remaining from the Belgrade crew is Freddie Davidson and Will Stewart. All four are U23 medallists and made their senior debuts last season. They are also the third-ranked men’s sweep boat in the GB squad, so their performance in Belgrade was particularly pleasing. But can they beat the Olympic Champions? Personally, I think the British rowed better in Belgrade than Australia did in Poznan, but it’s difficult to argue against a crew with the pedigree of Australia.
I think Australia will take it, in what would be their first win in this event since 2012. But I think the young British four will give them a really tough race.
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