National Schools’ 2021 was always going to be a dramatic affair. After a long hiatus from the sport, every rower, cox and coach craved nothing more than unleashing their engines on Dorney. It was a fantastic event and one that saw the Old Guard fall. The Championship singles – on both the men’s and women’s side – is always hotly contested, and just taking a glance down the list of previous winners indicates that any medalist here is a sculler to worth keeping an eye on. This year, Laura Burton of Cambridge 99 Rowing Club (affectionally ‘nines’) took home the Championship Girl’s Singles Trophy. This is the story of her journey to the top.
With training interrupted the Covid-19, Laura and the coaching team at Nines were forced to retreat into isolation and begin a block of Zoom training: “We stuck to training plan”, says Laura, “having that structure on Zoom with our coach was really helpful – he would constantly check in with us to see how we were doing motivation-wise.”
As March rolled around, so did the shutters of the boathouse, as water sessions were allowed to begin. “It was a huge help getting back on the water in March. We started off just getting the basic right, before starting to focus on NSR with high-intensity stuff and starts.”
When it was finally time to race, Laura – like most others – had no clue how she would stack up against the field, so her promising time trial was “completely unexpected.”
“Before the final we looked at the Time Trial results in detail to get an idea of how the other girls would race. I knew who would go off hard, and just knew I had to stay in my own head: If you see the other girls in their singles, you can start to overthink.”
After sweeping away the opposition in the Time Trial, Laura dominated through her A-Final, coming out from the event with a gold medal.
Reaching the gold medal of the Championships singles is no mean feat. In her quest for victory, it was Swift that gave Laura the tools she needed: “A couple of years ago we had a boat that broke just before NSR 2019 – Swift were super good in getting a replacement out, and I’ve used that boat ever since.”
Laura wasn’t the only Swift sculler making waves at Nottingham, though, with Ed Gaskarth – also from Nines – placing in the A-final of the men’s championship singles. Ed only began to row in late 2019, so was burdened with a sporadic on-water introduction to rowing.
“I’m quite inexperienced – that was my first side-by-side race.” he admits. “The time trial was enjoyable and I rowed quite well. I was more disappointed with the final; I think my lack of experience showed through a bit.”
Ed finished 6th in the A-final.
When asked what he thought of the shell he rowed for National Schools’, his response was simple: “For single sculling, Swift is where I’m looking.”
Swift Racing UK is the official boat building partner of JRN
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