This field should be fairly competitive, but based on previous results, there is no clear winner. Since there is no B final, all nine of these girls will be seeking a place in the A final. Here are five of the girls that will probably feature in the six-boat final:
Walton (Alexopoulos)– Altough she doesn’t appear to have a ton of experience racing the single, early in the season Alexopoulos won the WJ17 1x title at Hampton Small Boats Head in a competitive field of 31 scullers. This is a very promising result and puts her in contention to win.
Tideway Scullers School (Lawrence)– At Scullers Head, Lawrence placed 2nd in the WJ17 division. Lawrence placed 4/31 in the WJ17 1x at Hampton Small Boats Head this year, which is another strong result. She was 10 seconds behind Alexopoulos over the 3k course, which puts her in a good spot for a medal.
Twickenham RC (Duthart)– With a 3rd place finish in the WJ16 1x event at this race last year, Duthart will be seeking another medal today. She placed 2nd in the WJ16 1x event at the British Junior Championships last summer. Last spring, Duthart was in a Championship double that won the C final by a large margin at Nationals. Those results show lots of potential and it should be a good battle between her and Alexopoulos to get the gold.
Reading (Richards)– At this race last year, Richards placed 2nd in the B final of W16 1x. Given that the winner of that B final, Holly Dunford, is the top J18 female trialist this year, it’s safe to say that massive improvements can happen over just one year. It would be nice to see Richards improve on her result and make the A final.
Isle of Ely RC (Johnson)– Isle of Ely placed 2nd in the B final of the Championship 4x at Nationals last year with Johnson in that boat. That’s a very good result for a J16 at the time, and assuming she has only improved since then, Johnson should be looking at an A final.
Final predictions:
Gold: TWK-Duthart
Silver: WLT-Alexopoulos
Bronze: TSS-Lawrence
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