We have reached the summit. As a rowing community, there are few weeks in the calendar that we collectively look forward to more than Henley Royal Regatta. The unique match-racing style format, the frivolity and festival unfolding on the banks alongside a pomp and circumstance that transports the punter back through the pages of time itself. All of this is secondary though to the curvature of competition that angles upwards as the week unfolds. From heats on the Tuesday to finals on the Sunday, all roads lead to the red box. JRN will be with you every step of the way to provide the most comprehensive coverage of the Regatta available anywhere in the world – and we start with our exclusive set of event previews. Roll on the racing.
Entries: 5
Whilst there are five entries in this event, all eyes will be on a potential showdown between the 2024 IRA Varsity champions from the University of Washington and Oxford Brookes University and Taurus Boat Club crew that beat the Dutch Olympic crew at the Holland Beker last month.
Washington come to Henley with the same line up that won on Lake Mercer at the beginning of June. It’s a very international crew with four Brits, two Norwegians, an Italian, a Kiwi and a solitary American. They crew has a decent amount of Henley experience – Sam Ford from Monkton Combe School was in the Molesey crew that won the Thames Challenge Cup in 2022 and coxswain Nikita Jacobs and Cameron Taylor were both in the Radley College crew that made the final of the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup in 2022. Also in the crew is GB Start athlete Archie Drummond and Norway’s Jonathan Wang-Norderud. Both of these athletes were in the UW Prince Albert crew that made the final last year. Both Max Heid (the only American in the crew) and the second Norwegian, Marius Bjørn-Hansen Ahlsand, made the semi-finals of the Temple Challenge Cup last year. The only athlete without Henley experience is Italy’s Giuseppe Bellomo, a freshman who won U23 gold last year. UW last won the Grand back in 1977 and, in the absence of any senior national team crews, they will see this year as a golden opportunity to get their name on the Grand for the second time.
Oxford Brookes University and Taurus Boat Club will be looking to round off their season with a win in the top eights event at Henley, to go with the Dutch title they won at the Holland Beker. Their performance against the Dutch Olympic crew was outstanding; their time of 5:29 was a club record and to beat any national squad crew is immensely satisfying, especially when doing it on their home water. The crew contains six U23 world champions from 2022 and 2023, including Matthew Heywood, Jake Wincomb, Fergus Woolnough, Toby Lassen, Louis Nares and Tom Bryce. Nares, Wincomb, Heywood and Doran (an Oxford blue) all raced at the Poznan World Rowing Cup, with Wincomb and Nares finishing fifth in the pair and Heywood and Doran winning the B-Final, also in the pair. Wincomb, Heywood and Doran were also in the Brookes crew that won the Ladies Plate last year and Nares and Woolnough won the Temple with Brookes last year.
But, this isn’t just about Brookes v Washington. Leander Club have won the Grand Challenge Cup 14 times, although they last won it as a single club crew (as opposed to a composite) back in 1953. Their crew has plenty of Henley experience. Both Matt Rowe and Sam Bannister won the Ladies Plate with Brookes last year with James Vogel, Tom Ballinger, Dan Graham and Bruce Turnell all featuring in the Leander boat they beat. Seven of the crew represented GB at the Poznan World Rowing Cup this season, with Douwe De Graaf, Bannister, Graham and Rowe winning bronze in the four and Vogel, Miles Beeson and Ballinger finishing two places behind them. Leander and Brookes have faced each other once this season (albeit with a slightly different Brookes line-up), with the Pink Palace narrowly coming out on top at Ghent International Regatta.
Both Leander and Brookes have half their crew’s doubling-up to race each other in The Stewards Challenge Cup.
The other two crews in the event are Princeton Training Center and Craftsbury Green Racing Project of the USA and Rowing Canada. Both crews consist of development athletes or senior squad athletes who missed out on Olympic qualification.
The Rowing Canada entry is based around a core of athletes from the University of British Columbia, including Owen Bartel, Maijken Meindertsma, Robert Walsh, Adrian Breen and coxswain Oscar Wostenholme. The remaining three members of the crew are Kyle Nummi from Queen’s University and two US based athletes, Oliver Page-Kuhr from Brown and Payton Gauthier from Syracuse. Bartel, a freshman at UBC, raced at the junior world championships in 2022 and both Gauthier and Hembruff have rowed on the Canadian U23 team. This is predominantly a Canadian U23 development crew so may be a little out of their depth in the Grand.
The US Princeton Training Center and Craftsbury Green Racing Project crew are a development boat with a decent amount of international experience. Gus Rodriguez raced in the four at the 2022 world championships and then paired with Alex Hedge to finish 11th in the pair at the Lucerne World Rowing Cup this season. Hedge also rowed in the US eight at the world championships last season. The most experienced member of the crew is the 3 seat – Michael Knippen. He has been racing on the US senior team since 2018 and raced in the quad at both the 2018 and 2019 world championships. In 2022, he sat in the US eight that finished fourth and this season made an appearance in the single at the Lucerne World Rowing Cup. Most of the remaining members of the crew all have U23 international experience. Stroke Kai Hoite was in the BM8 that won silver in 2022 and 2-man Jacob Hudgens from Dartmouth also won U23 BM8 silver in 2023. Sitting at five is Nathan Phelps, who is another U23 silver medalist, this time from the BM4+ in 2022. Sitting behind him at four is Max Kreutzelman, who was in the BM4X that finished 11th in 2022. The only member of the crew who has yet to race for his country is bowman Breck Duncan from Wisconsin. Coxswain Rachel Rane, from the University of Texas, coxed the US BW8 to world championship gold in 2022.
Prediction
This should be a fascinating tussle, and a lot depends on the draw. Leander got the better of Brookes in Ghent, but Brookes look to have stepped on since then, and what can UW bring to the party? I think the US and Canadian boats may be a little out of their depth and it’ll come down to UW, Brookes or Leander. I’m going to go for…….Brookes
About The Author
