Saturday Review
Surbiton High School vs St. Catherine’s Sch., AUS
It was a close race here, with the crews staying relatively level for much of the first half. Both crews’ technique and harmony suffered against the progressively strengthening headwind, which quelled St Catherine’s powerful start and levelled the crews. Though they managed to maintain their canvas lead, at Remenham the Australian crew put in a big, aggressive sprint and managed to push away from Surbiton. Surbiton’s efforts to catch up in raising the rate were in vain, as they couldn’t make up the two lengths they eventually lost to St Catherine’s determination: an interesting and very competitive race, which really exhibits the grit which is required to make it to the finals at Henley.
Henley R.C vs Winter Park Crew, USA.
The predictions on the outcome of this race were pretty hotly debated, but the general bets were on Winter Park. Thus we were unsurprised when Winter Park took an early lead, keeping Henley at a high rate. Winter Park kept their lead, causing Henley to tense up as they put in a push to make up the lead. This combined with the less than ideal conditions certainly stalled this attempt. When asked, one of Winter Park’s rowers said they were happy with how they dealt with the conditions, which may have kept the race as close as it was. Winter Park, having a comparatively young cox, were warned for steering twice but managed to hang on to ultimately take the win at half a length.
Sunday Preview
It’ll be a very international final for the PP tomorrow, and hopefully with less of a strong headwind. I expect this to be a close race between two incredibly powerful crews, although St Catherine’s had kept a lower rate than Henley did in their race. Given Winter Park’s domination of the field over the course of the event, I think it’ll be the Floridians that take the win.
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