It was approximately 3pm on Saturday, the 25th of May, that Henley knew they might be in trouble. Halfway through their Championship Girls Eight semi-final, they were behind – a position that no-one has seen them occupy for some time. Undefeated on the domestic scene for nearly two years, the fact that they were trailing at the halfway mark need not spark immediate concern – this crew had the horsepower and tenacity to overcome most opposition. It wasn’t even the margin or distance between themselves and the leading crew – it was the identity of the latter and the entire dynamic of a compelling race unfolding before us.
Lady Eleanor Holles have struggled to assert themselves at the summit of junior women’s rowing over the past few years. For so long, they stood back in the shadow of bigger, better boats – Henley, Headington, Marlow. 2019 was different, though. 2019 stands out for all the right reasons, from the introduction of seasoned coach Antony ‘Smithy’ Smith as Director of Rowing, to the surprise second-placed finish at the Schools’ Head that gave them the necessary momentum to see off all-comers on Saturday and claim the ultimate prize in schoolgirl rowing.
“We knew we could get into their heads with a quick start and so that was something we worked specifically on”
But before we can return to this moment of greatest triumph, we have to first examine the building blocks. LEH are a proud rowing school with infrastructure and support systems that consistently produce quality athletes. Riding the crest of a wave after a historic season as Assistant Director of Rowing at St Paul’s School, Smithy arrived in September in his first big solo role. We spoke with him in December about his plans for the season and one of his quotes from that interview rings with an irony now – “We need to take smaller steps to where we want to go and just focus on bringing in a strong culture”.
It’d be hard for Smithy, a former Tideway Scullers School athlete himself, to argue that the journey hasn’t been slightly expedited. When LEH finished only two seconds behind Henley at the Schools’ Head of the River in March, “we could smell blood” he explained. After a productive training camp and some excellent progress made in the quieter weeks preceding regatta fanfare, the girls arrived at Dorney with nought but gold in their minds.
“We’ve got a really young group here – all of the girls in that crew are J17 bar one,” said Smithy. “We’d originally viewed this season as a platform for development but our results through the winter indicated that perhaps we were capable of challenging for honours.”
And so it seemed. Saturday afternoon saw LEH actually finish second in their semi-final, a second back on Henley, but this fails to do justice to the race itself. For over half of the course, LEH led their opponents without exerting themselves – they looked composed, smooth and deep into their cruising speed. As Smithy testified, they’d approached the semi-final with the intent of finishing in the top two without applying any pushes.
If you’d watched the opening act, the events of the ‘A’ final will have come as very little surprise. Jumping out to a two second lead at the 500m mark, Lady Eleanor Holles were never reigned in and rowed away to secure their first Championship Girls Eight title in over 10 years.
“The final pretty much worked out as planned – we could sit up on the field and just watch the racing unfold behind us”.
“We actually believe we can go faster,” noted Smithy, still nursing a sore voice after a weekend of shouting from a bicycle. “We’re now going to move into quads for Henley and see how we get on. We’ve been in the eight pretty much all year, so we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but we want to approach those summer events in the right way.”
You’d be foolish to write off an assault on the Diamond Jubilee Challenge Cup – the girls will be racing Elite Quads at the Metropolitan Regatta this weekend, to see how their sculling speed matches up to the best of the best.
Reflecting on a race where everything seemed to fall into place, Smithy believes that more is still to come. “If you’d told me that was going to happen at the beginning of the year, I’d have been pretty shocked,” he said. “But when the girls crossed the line on Saturday, and even in the weeks leading up to the event, it wasn’t shock at our speed or surprise at our strength. I just felt relief that they executed on the biggest stage”.
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