The crux of the regatta season is here, the days are longer, and the top junior womens’ crews are gearing up for the second year of Henley’s Junior Women’s Eights event, renamed earlier this year after the late Duke of Edinburgh. The pool of entries has more than doubled from last year’s 13 to 27, which will be reduced to 16 who will qualify.
Henley RC
Having missed the gold at this event last year, Henley will be eager to settle the score with Headington. It’s a strong possibility they will, too, looking at their results so far this season: they won this event at both Henley Womens’ and Nat Schools recently after an equally successful season. Having raced against – and ultimately beaten – all these crews before, it’ll be the international crews that pose the biggest threat to Henley’s spot on the podium.
Headington Sch
Headington are unsurprisingly returning to defend their title, having won this event last year. However, their absence from Nat Schools and HWR mere weeks ago likely didn’t go unnoticed: due to injuries in their 1st VIII their crew had to be seriously re-shaped. Though the crew is likely well-organised by now, they may struggle more than they have in previous seasons since their eight hasn’t competed as recently.
Hinksey Sculling Sch
Hinksey just missed out on the finals of HWR, having lost the semi-finals to Surbiton by just under two seconds. They also placed third at NSR, so will have a good shot at the podium.
Surbiton
With Headington’s recent absences, the new rivalry for gold has been between Surbiton and Henley. They placed second at both NSR and HWR, coming in less than a second behind Henley in the latter. It’s likely this rivalry will continue, though the battle for top spot was actually between Surbiton and Headington last year, with Henley being knocked out in the semi finals – perhaps this will be repeated.
International Crews
With the larger pool of entries comes four international crews from the USA and Australia. Seattle club Green Lake Crew were eliminated rather swiftly by Surbiton in this event last year, but they and Winter Park Crew, who recently won the American Youth Cup, will largely remain wild cards. But it’s the Australian crews, Melbourne Girls’ Grammar and St. Catherines that have been posing a threat to the established British crews, and who are the second and first ranked WJ 8+ crews in Australia respectively. They have been vying for top spot for two years now, and the Australian Junior Women’s Eight at last year’s Junior World Championships had a 50/50 split of rowers from both clubs. They will undoubtedly be fierce competition, despite the British crews’ home water advantage.
Prediction
Given their recent run of success, Henley will certainly claim a place on the podium. Surbiton will likely be their main challenger, as well as defending champions Headington. However, I believe at least one of the Australian crews will place, threatening the order established so carefully so far this season.
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