I’m very much looking forward to this event. The standard looks exceptionally high amongst all thirteen boats entered in this, the women’s championship coxless fours.
Those who will progress to the semi final: St Edwards’s, St George’s, Pangbourne, Lady Eleanor Holles A, Lady Eleanor Holles B, Lady Eleanor Holles C, Headington, Peterborough, King’s Chester, Haberdashers’ Monmouth, Reading, Hinksey.
There’s an impressive showing this year from Lady Eleanor Holles who have entered three fours. My straight up favourites for this event are Headington, with this four formed from their Champ VIII. With their eight on top form, beating LEH at Wallingford in Elite Eights, their four will no doubt be fresh from medaling the day before and these girls may return to Oxford with two medals in hand. King’s Chester are also ones to watch out for come Sunday, after they finished third in Elite Fours at Wallingford, beating the St George’s four by seven seconds. Also in contention for a medal is the four from Haberdashers’ Monmouth who showed strength in eights at Wallingford finishing second in the WSch8+ category. Again these girls look set to perform well on Saturday and I can definitely see them carrying this success into the four. With only one crew eliminated after the time trial, I can’t imagine it would be one of the LEH crews who is. With such depth within their squad, they are absolutely capable of qualifying all three of their boats for the semi finals, which is of course an impressive feat and speaks volume about the high standard of girls crews that LEH produce year on year. Of course qualifying three fours would lead to the problem of at least two of the LEH racing each other. I think it would be unlikely however that all three fours made it to the final, but this is impressive none the least. Reading look to shake things up a bit in this event as well, their boat containing Zoe Taylor who rowed in the Women’s four at Munich recently. I’m not a big believer in the ‘one key individual makes a boat fast’ school of thought, but it is useful to have her nonetheless. Final mentions should go to Pangbourne and St George’s, with St George’s fielding a pretty quick four at Wallingford, which while fell short of Chester’s speed showed it could compete at a very high level of women’s rowing.
PREDICTION FOR THE FINAL: Lady Eleanor Holles A, Headington, King’s Chester, Haberdashers’ Monmouth, Reading, St George’s
Final Predictions: 1st – Headington 2nd – LEH 3rd -Haberdashers’ Monmouth
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