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: 2
The only event in the regatta to have a guaranteed British winner – it’s Oxford Brookes University v Leander Club.
Oxford Brookes are the defending champions, but the 2023 crew were the senior GB crew that went on to win the world championships last year. Their crew this year are all U23 world champions and are all doubling-up in the Brookes Grand Challenge Cup entry. The crew is Louis Nares, Jake Wincomb, Fergus Woolnough and Toby Lassen. They all have Henley wins to their credit. Wincomb won the Ladies Plate last year and also the Temple in 2022. Lassen was also in the 2022 Temple crew and last year won the Visitors’. Nares won the Prince Albert in 2022 and, last year, he and Woolnough were in the Temple Challenge Cup-winning boat. This season, as part of the Brookes first eight, they raced at the Holland Beker and returned with a famous victory over the Dutch Olympic men’s crew, whilst also setting a club record in the process (a blisteringly quick 5:29). Nares and Wincomb made their senior international debuts at the Poznan World Rowing Cup where they finished in a very respectable fifth in the pair. They are all still U23-eligible so will definitely be names to watch for the LA Olympiad.
Facing Brookes is Leander Club. They have Matt Rowe, Sam Bannister, Dan Graham and Douwe De Graaf. These two crews know each other extremely well as both Rowe and Bannister have Henley medals racing for Brookes plus Bannister was a crewmate of Wincomb’s in the Ladies Plate-winning crew last year. He also has a win in this event, racing for Brookes in 2021. Matt Rowe won his Henley medal with the 2021 Brookes Ladies Plate crew. Dan Graham won the Ladies Plate in 2022 and made his senior international debut in 2023 when he and Bannister rowed in the GB four that finished fourth at the final World Rowing Cup. Douwe de Graaf was part of the outstanding 2018 St Paul’s School crew that won the Princess Elizabeth. He then went to Harvard and raced in the their first Varsity. He is a two-time U23 world champion. This crew were selected to race for GB at the final World Rowing Cup of this season, winning bronze behind the New Zealand and Australian Olympic crews.
Prediction
As always with a race between Britain’s two premier clubs, there should be a lot of fireworks especially given that these two crews know each other very well and have rowed together over the years. Leander look to have the edge; they competed as a unit for Great Britain at the World Rowing Cup, but there’s something about Henley that brings out the best in Brookes. This could be an absolute classic, but I’m going for the Pink palace to get one over their fierce rivals.
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