Henley Royal Regatta 2023 – The Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup Preview

Holders: St Paul’s School

Entries: 43

It is sometime said that in great simplicity comes great beauty. Rowing is a simple sport – you are charged with propelling your boat from one point to another at maximum speed. No frills, no spills and nothing fancy to cloud your judgement, vision or focus on the simplicity of the task that lies ahead. This is the gift and the curse that we as rowers adopt as our mantra and it is the mission upon which 32 schoolboy crews will embark upon in a weeks’ time. From entry into the sport to climbing the Olympic podium, athletes whisper in gyms and gather on sun-soaked riverbanks to discuss their hopes and dreams and Henley Royal Regatta is ever-present in the conversation.

The Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup is the big one. Sometimes, words fall short of capturing the enormity of a competition that has played host to everything conceivable in the sport of rowing and often elevated mere mortals to feats of other-worldy, gravity-defying, mind-bending greatness. This is the one everyone wants to win.

St Edward’s School

Let’s start at the top. National champions for the first time in recent memory, St Edward’s School arrive in Henley as domestic favourites by virtue of their win at Dorney Lake some three-and-a-half weeks ago. They’ve flown under the radar since then, not appearing at either Metropolitan or Marlow Regattas in the hope of building a solid training block. Jonny Singfield will be well aware that people get faster approaching Henley Royal Regatta and the likes of Eton, Radley, KCS and St Paul’s will be smarting after events at the National Schools’ Regatta. His focus will have been on getting his boys focused on the task ahead; the Triple is off the table by virtue of the fact that Shiplake College took the Schools’ Head of the River headship but a double certainly has a nice ring to it.

St Paul’s School

Bobby Thatcher does not play the role of bridesmaid well. Every time I write St Paul’s School off – much to their collective annoyance I’m sure – they make me look stupid. Take 2022 for example – they came from literally nowhere to blast the field apart and secure a sensational win in the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup. The backbone of that remarkable crew remains, including the dynamic stern pairing of Philip Wolfensberger and Felix Peerless backed up by the raw power available to Alp Karadogan (who is still only a J16). They were the fastest-finishing junior crew at both Metropolitan and Marlow Regattas, pipping Shiplake to the line in the latter by 0.3 seconds. Don’t sleep on these guys – come Henley, they’re usually the real deal.

Eton College

Another boat club who simply know what it takes to win at Henley Royal Regatta, Eton’s season has yet to really ignite. Fifth at the Schools’ Head of the River was followed by a third place at the National Schools’ Regatta, a trophy they won in each of the previous two seasons. Again, they’ve not been seen since events at Dorney Lake back in May so we don’t know their speed coming into the apex of the season. 2022 was, in my view, all about the Eton crew, who I believed were odds-on favourites to win their third title in a row. Their defeat at the hands of Radley College in a rain-soaked semi-final was not only the race of the Regatta for me, but one of the real surprises that 2022 sprung on us. Focus in the grand halls of Eton will be on reclaiming what they believe to be rightfully theirs.

Shiplake College

Are Shiplake bending the curve? Every year, we have the same conversation. The bees blow everyone away throughout the winter before finding summer racing difficult to contend with. Their showing at the National Schools’ Regatta is an interesting one to analyse and I am of the firm belief that had we not had crosswind conditions and lanes with varying handicaps, Shiplake would have been more competitive in the final (where they finished sixth). Dave Currie and Hugh Mackworth-Praed will have been quietly satisfied with events at Marlow Regatta, where their boys pushed St Paul’s incredibly hard and only lost out in the closing stages after leading them to every previous timing marker. Frankly, the finish line is all that matters and Shiplake will hope that they’re in a position to make that final step come Tuesday 27th June.

Radley College

The Radley rebound is on. Sam Townsend and John Gearing will have taken their fourth-placed finish at the National Schools’ Regatta with the appropriate pinch of salt. Conditions played a dramatic part (evidenced by the facts that lanes one to eight finished in that order) and Radley know their program gets faster into Henley Royal Regatta. In 2022, we had a far better idea of who was moving fast as a lot more of the top programs raced at Marlow. This time out, three of the top four from the National Schools’ Regatta have not been seen since and Radley are part of that trio. They’re the tale of the nearly-men in this competition – so many Saturday and Sunday appearances without the coveted red box to show for it (they’re actually the most frequent losing finalists, having missed out on seven occasions). Were they to win next week, it would be their first victory since 1998.

King’s College School Wimbledon

I get this nagging feeling that the best chance KCS have had to win the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup in recent times may have passed them by. They were on fire coming into last year’s edition and will have been as surprised as everyone else was to see St Paul’s slip by them in the closing metres. Revenge is a sweet tonic though and KCS have been moving well in the past few weeks, closing the gap between themselves and St Paul’s. Although an outright win is probably out of their reach, a Saturday placing would represent a fantastic return on investment in a deep field.

Marin Rowing Association, USA

Welcome to the big leagues. I’ll leave it to you to determine whether I’m talking to the UK schools or the US clubs but either way, the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup is now the closest thing we have to a junior world cup. Marin were fourth at the USRowing Youth National Championships, a result which is quite tricky to compare directly to any UK equivalent. Not everyone races at the US Youth Nationals and the roster is usually dominated by the large club programs, who pull talent in from the local area. Marin boat off the west coast of the USA into the San Francisco Bay and will come to Henley with one thing in mind – taking the trophy back home with them. They won the South-West Regional Championships, posting a 5:49.9 and also won the Youth Eight’s category at San Diego Crew Classic. On paper at least, they’re the fastest American crew.

Greenwich Crew, USA

Speaking to those who attended the USRowing Youth National Championships, I think everyone was pretty surprised to see Greenwich in the ‘B’ final of Youth Eights. Several of this crew actually won the title in 2022 and they come to Henley Royal Regatta as Youth Eight champions at the Head of the Charles and Mercer Sprints. Their rivalry with Marin will be one of the key narratives of the Regatta and they’ll be fueled by a sense of injustice following a disappointing showing two weeks ago. Coxswain Elenna Seguin steered the US Coxed Four at the Junior World Championships last summer and will be headed to Brown University in the fall. This is her last dance with her team-mates and she’ll be desperate to drive them onto a historic win.

Deerfield Academy, USA

A coxed four program who have switched to the bigger boats for 2023, Deerfield have been building an impressive resume approaching Henley. They were sixth at the USRowing Youth National Championships but I’m told they’re getting faster as the season winds into its conclusion. An independent coeducational boarding preparatory school in Massachusetts, Deerfield were winners at NEIRA (New England Interscholastic Rowing Association Regatta) by five seconds and have previous at Henley Royal Regatta, having appeared in both the Princess Elizabeth and Prince Albert Challenge Cups in 2017.

St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, USA

Everyone will remember the St Joe’s prep crew that came to Henley Royal Regatta in 2021 as basically the only American crew to make the trip in the first rendition of the event post-COVID. They dipped out on the Friday of competition but coach John Fife has brought them back in 2023 for another go round. They won the Stotesbury Cup and the USRowing Mid-Atlantic Youth Championship earlier this year but their showing at the USRowing Youth National Championships – by their own admission – was not up to standard. A tough time-trial left them with too much to do in later rounds and in the end they finished three seconds behind Greenwich Crew in the ‘B’ final. Depending on which version of this crew appear on the starting block, we might see a boat motivated to put right the ills of the last couple of weeks or a unit who can’t deliver on their undoubted potential (both Owen Finnerty and Luke Smith raced in the American U19 eight at the Junior World Championships last summer).

Brisbane Boys’ College, Australia

Celebrating the 30-year anniversary of their last win in this event, Brisbane Boys College have come over from Australia after a really impressive domestic season. They were silver medalists in Schoolboy Eights at the 2023 Australian Rowing Championships after an undefeated run in the Queensland 2023 GPS Regatta racing season. They were 2023 Head of River winners in Queensland (5:53.71) and we all know how strong Aussie crews tend to fare at Henley Royal Regatta. All that said, the 2023 edition is as stacked as I have ever seen it and Brisbane will need to be bang on it to navigate their way through a few potentially stick match-ups.

Stadtteilschule Alter Teichweg, Hamburg, Germany

It’s great to see a crew from Germany pitch up at Henley to take on the best of the rest of the world. They were 2022 national champions in the junior eight and silver medalists in the coxed quad. Can that speed translate to English waters? The German national championship is actually this coming weekend so it will be interesting to see if these boys opt to race there or come straight over to Henley.

Prediction

Tricky. I’m going to say Saturday will comprise St Paul’s School, St Edward’s School, Marin Rowing Association and one of Greenwich, Radley, Eton or Shiplake. Beyond that, it becomes increasingly tricky. I’m going to back St Paul’s to retain their title.

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