After a packed weekend’s racing at the National Schools’ Regatta, it is quite understandable that junior eights at the Metropolitan Regatta a mere week later would be a slightly diminished affair. Unlike student and senior crews, many of whom will not have raced for several weeks, juniors are fresh off the heels of their de-facto national championships and several of the top programs are choosing to prioritise a block of training as opposed to jumping straight back into a race situation.
What we do have are a smattering of crews spread across championship and junior eights who are worth reflecting on. Most are competing on the Saturday and that is where I am going to focus most of my efforts.
St Paul’s School
Silver will not have been the medal colour that Bobby Thatcher’s boys were seeking at the National Schools’ Regatta. Much has been made of the crosswind that dictated lane draws but Teddies running away by near-enough clear water will not have pleased St Paul’s, who have retained a good chunk of the crew that delivered them to Henley Royal Regatta glory in 2022. They’re off second in Championship Open Eights, sandwiched between Oxford Brookes and Leander, which should prove to be an acid test of speed. There is no doubting that if you offered St Paul’s the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup in exchange for a silver medal at Dorney last weekend, they would bite your hand off. Their transition from now until the end of June will be fascinating to watch.
King’s College School
King’s College were one of the favoured crews approaching Henley Royal Regatta last season but don’t carry with them that same sense of destiny in 2023. This year’s crew has not achieved the same level of recognition on the domestic scene, finishing fifth last weekend but some way adrift of Radley in fourth. Paddy Duggan now has a task on his hands to transform this unit into nine lads ready to scale the summit of junior rowing. The Metropolitan Regatta will be the first step on that road; they’re racing in the Championship category and chasing down a boat from Oxford Brookes in the time-trial. If they can close the gap on St Paul’s – who were over ten seconds clear at the National Schools’ Regatta – that will be a great start.
Latymer Upper School
This is a development crew built off the back of a hugely-successful Junior 16 outfit from 2022. Their seventh-placed finish in Championship Open Eights at the National Schools’ Regatta last weekend was the strongest performance I have seen from this school in quite a while and they’re got every chance of going deep into the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup (draw permitting). The next few weeks of training and racing will be crucial. They have another fast Junior 16 boat – who finished fifth in their respective category last weekend – so an amalgamation of resources may well be on the cards. Ninth out of the gate in Championship Open Eights at the Metropolitan Regatta, they’ll be looking to hunt down KCS and show a better turn of speed.
Dulwich College
Second in the ‘B’ final of Championship Open Eights, Dulwich are a boat club on the rise. They were 13th at the Schools’ Head of the River and some 30 seconds slower than Bedford School (albeit with a penalty in tow) who they beat at the weekend. They’re arguably the fastest junior eight racing in the nominally correct category at the Metropolitan Regatta and should be aiming to take the win with relative ease.
Winchester College
A boat club who so often flatter to deceive, there was a period when Winchester were kicking around at the very top of the junior rowing leader-board. They have not enjoyed the same levels of success over the past decade, with results varying and boat classes changing regularly. They were eighth in the ‘B’ final of Championship Open Eights at the National Schools’ Regatta and will be looking to close down the 19-second gap between themselves and Dulwich.
Prediction
Hard to really put any sense into a group of crews who are littered all over the draw. St Paul’s will be horrified if they walk away from next weekend as anything less than the fastest junior crew. King’s College School in turn will be playing the role of hunter and trying to close down a gap that looks, at present, insurmountable. For Latymer, this is a building year and arguably the most critical part of their junior lives. A good J16 crew does not automatically mean a fast J18 boat – the J17 year should be focused on physical conditioning, increased intensity of training and coherence between athletes whose natural friction will be starting to show.
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