National Schools Regatta 2014- J16 1st Eights Preview

Some new faces to the event this year with some of the returners coming back to retain their title. A fair amount of entries (13) meaning that only one crew won’t qualify from the time trials into the semi finals. However, competition is stiff and quite unpredictable as many crews haven’t raced against each other much. 

Crews that should qualify:

• Bedford School
• Kingston Rowing Club
• Reading Blue Coat School
• Kingston Grammar School
• Kings College School, Wimbledon
• Bedford Modern School
• St. Georges College

These already make up half of the spaces for the semis leaving 5 lanes for other crews. Now none of these crews are definitely going to qualify but I see it as highly unlikely they won’t. Now all of the crews there, par one (Kingston Rowing Club) qualified last year and are of a high standard. I included Kingston Rowing Club because they did well against two of last years top crews Kingston Grammar School (Kingston Head) and Bedford Modern School (JIRR). I also feel that these crews, par one, will be the finalists, depending on how the draw works. In terms of medals, I can only really predict the Bedford Modern School and Kingston Grammar will take Gold and Silver. Therefore Bronze is left open and I believe pretty much all of these crews are in contention to take it.