It’s finally that time of year again – the pinnacle of the season for the vast majority of these crews – the National Schools’ Regatta 2019. The J16 2nd 8+ has a fairly slim entry this year, with only seven crews battling it out for a coveted gold medal on the waters of Eton Dorney. This event is now the 2nd tier of J16 8’s, after the merging of J16 Champ and 1st 8’s at last year’s event, so should provide some exciting racing as always. As far as I can see, it appears that all seven crews will compete in a time trial first but only for choice of lanes, as they will all proceed directly to a seven lane A-final later on Saturday afternoon.
Eton College
As they often do, Eton’s J16 squad has made a massive step up in performance terms from their unimpressive J15 season, with their J16 1st crew recently winning their event at Schools’ Head by 3 seconds. They have two eights entered into this event, both their J16 2nd and 3rd8’s, who should be extremely competitive and will be fighting for a medal on their home water. Their J16 2nd8+ (Eton College A on the entries), now stroked by Clement Toussaint, absolutely dominated their category at Schools Head, beating Westminster’s J16 2nd 8+ by over 20 seconds. Their J16 3rd 8+ wasn’t far behind, placing 6th in the same event. Although it appears there has been some switching around of athletes between the 2 boats, I expect Eton to be on the podium at the least, and they are most definitely a favourite for the gold medal.
Bedford School
Bedford have one crew entered, stroked by Henry Tyrer, and I think they should be fairly competitive, if not possibly seeking a podium finish. This crew placed 4th in J16 2nd 8+ at Schools’ Head, 40 seconds behind the same Eton boat they will race in this event. However, since then they have made some crew changes, with the stroke man from Schools’ Head 8+ now sitting at 2. Their coaches will be hoping that since that fairly convincing defeat on the tideway, these changes will help them gain the speed they need to challenge Eton, along with the experience gained from their April camp in Sarnen.
Westminster School
Westminster have also decided to only enter one crew into the event, but these athletes will be hungry for a gold medal, having been defeated on their home water at Schools’ Head, forcing them to come away with a silver medal. I’m sure they’ll have been working hard since then to turn that 20 second deficit around and to beat Eton on the Saturday. However, with very little racing having occurred since Schools’ Head due to the Easter break it’s hard to say whether they’ll manage this- but they are known as a club with pretty great depth within squads, and their J16 1st 8+ is very fast, so who knows what could happen.
Radley College
Unfortunately, this year the Radley J16 squad do not look particularly strong, with their J16 1st 8+ only managing 9th at Schools’ Head, and this J16 2nd 8+ taking 5th in their event, a minute down on Eton. Therefore, it doesn’t look like this crew will be challenging for a medal- but Radley are often a fairly unknown quantity at this time of year, with a knack of peaking late in the season for Henley.
Hampton School
This crew look to be a similar speed to Westminster, placing 3rd in J16 2nd 8’s at Schools’ Head, only 2 seconds behind them, and 25 seconds behind the winners Eton. They have also made some crew changes, drawing from the vast numbers that Hampton tend to have within their squads- the stroke from Schools’ Head now sits at 5, with Saahil Dhawan now occupying the stroke seat. This crew has already raced at in this combination- producing a fairly speedy 06:43.1 at Nottingham City Regatta, which is similar to the times of the lower end J16 1st 8’s, so I think they’ll be hoping for a medal.
Abingdon School
This crew from Abingdon is by far the most unknown out of all 7 entries- due to them scratching at Schools’ Head providing very few major results to stack them against the other crews. However, at the recent Bedford Amateur Regatta, they beat Bedford’s J16 1st 8+ to make the final into an Abingdon J16 1st 8+ vs Abingdon J16 2nd8+. Although the 2nd 8+ did lose, their qualifying times were similar and this proves that they have some serious speed, making them another firm favourite.
Predictions
It’s very hard to say at this point who will come away with the medals in this category, but I’m predicting that there will be a dogfight down the track between Eton, Westminster and Abingdon, withEton 1st, Abingdon 2nd and Westminster 3rd. However, I could easily be completely wrong, with Hampton, Bedford and Radley eager to prove me so, but either way it should be both very close and exciting.
MarginalGainz
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