For many Scottish crews SPR (as this event was formerly known) is the start of the summer regatta season and a great opportunity to test out crew combinations and race plans before heading to some of the bigger regattas. With BUCS only a week after SPR it is an especially important regatta for student crews as they get the chance to get some important race experience before travelling to Nottingham to compete against the rest of the country. outside of the Student crews there is a wide range of events on offer from junior to masters.
Edinburgh University BC
Edinburgh University is the dominant force in Scottish rowing and likely will be for a lot of events fighting amongst themselves for the win. Edinburgh will probably be in most dominant form in the bigger eights although there is certainly room for some competition in the coxed fours from other university crews.
Where the real value of this regatta will come through though is with the novice crews. Edinburgh has long had one of the most successful novice programs in the country. You only have to look back to 2021 when they locked out the entire Women’s Beginner Single A Final to see just the strength the programme has been able to produce.
For Edinburgh, the target has to be to get a clean sweep across all the events they enter although they might find it harder to achieve than they might want.
Glasgow University BC
Glasgow University are just coming off their Easter camp on Loch Lomond and should be in great form to really take it to the likes of Edinburgh. Glasgow looks to have a coxed four which could be particularly competitive. Results such as a win in the Open Coxless Four at the Inverness Winter Head and fourth in the Intermediate Coxed Four at BUCS Head shows that there is some promising baseline speed in the squad.
A clean weekend and maybe a win or two would be the target for Glasgow and one that is certainly achievable even against a programme as strong as Edinburgh.
University Rowing Aberdeen
It will be interesting to see what crews University Rowing Aberdeen put together. Usually, URA race as composite crews with both Aberdeen University and Robert Gordon University athletes, but with it just a week until BUCS they may be forced to sacrifice some of their potential speed in order to test out their true BUCS line ups.
A strong performance at Inverness Winter Head with wins in the Intermediate Coxed Four, Intermediate Pair and Intermediate Double to just name a few showed that the squad was able to pick up some speed late on in the winter and could put them in a strong position to face off against the likes of Glasgow University.
URA has had a very solid beginner programme for a few years now and wins at the Inverness Winter Head in the Beginner Coxed Four and Coxed Quad will have been a great confidence boost to the novices. How well they can transition their speed onto the regatta course will be interesting, particularly against what will surely be some of the toughest competition out of Edinburgh University.
Aberdeen Schools Rowing Association
Looking into junior rowing in Scotland, it’s ASRA who have for the past few years consistently produced some of the most promising talent. SPR has long been a great opportunity for them to not only race the other junior programmes in Scotland but also really test their crews against the Scottish university crews.
It’s likely that it will be in the smaller boats where ASRA will be most competitive with some especially quick junior doubles and pairs. There’s also a chance ASRA might boat a very quick coxed four, especially if they are looking to race one in champ at National Schools’ and the British Rowing Junior Championships this year.
Predictions
For the championship level student events, Edinburgh will likely clean sweep although their second boats crews will face strong competition from the likes of Glasgow University and University Rowing Aberdeen. While I have focused on student crews SPR will attract a wide range of clubs across Scotland and with a very diverse range of events there will be some cracking races to look forward to.
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