To be the best is tough. It requires aggression, skill, mental fortitude and no small amount of innate will. To deal with the expectation, the pressure, the understanding that everyone else wants to beat you – that takes balls. So to win, to become a champion, to remain a victor is a challenge that so many top athletes fail.
How about winning by 15 seconds? You must need to elevate yourself above normal levels of performance, right? For St Paul’s, the independent day school based on the banks of the Thames, the sublime has become the norm in a season where they have battered records, broken barriers and beaten all challengers by margins bordering on outrageous. The National Schools’ Regatta was the ultimate test – difficult conditions and a fully stacked field, coupled with the heavy burden of the favourites tag. They won at a canter, in a performance as good as junior rowing has witnessed in recent memory.
But what makes the crew so special? On paper, they’re formidable – multiple world champions, a British-record holder, junior internationals and numerous domestic titles. But we’ve seen a number of crews stacked with talent fail to make good on their potential. Junior Rowing News sat down with Director of Rowing Bobby Thatcher, who took us through the crew to find out what makes them so special.
Bow – Cameron McInroy
Expected University Destination – Harvard University Lightweights
Cam is one of the boat’s most balanced athletes. From the bow-seat, he sets the crew up well, providing technical precision and confidence. An intelligent racer with plenty of experience, he has made the bows his own in a partnership with Leo Von Malaise which stems back to their exploits racing at the Coupe De La Jeunesse last season.
2 – Leo Von Malaise
Expected University Destination – Oxford University
An impressive racer with explosive power, Leo is fiercely competitive. Once you’re up with Leo, you aren’t getting caught – his incredible mentality feeds into every aspect of his performance. He’s committed to rowing at Oxford next year, and OUBC will be lucky to have him.
3 – Thomas Horncastle
Expected University Destination – Returning Next Year
Tom has made a huge step up from the J16 crew who won silver last year. He’s got great technique and is hard as nails. In my opinion, he should be considered for the top boat at junior worlds this year – he is in the same place as Douwe was this time last season.
4 – Oliver Parish
Expected University Destination – Returning Next Year
Ollie has matured a lot this year, having raced in the GB-France Match last summer. His Dad is a former Boat Race athlete and Olympian, and he’s a little smaller than his old man, but he’s so mentally tough and determined to win.
5 – Calvin Tarczy – Harvard
Expected University Destination – Harvard University
Calvin is probably the best athlete I’ve ever worked with. I don’t want to poison the chalice, but he’s got the potential to go to the Olympic Games. There’s a lot of noise that’s been made over his physical ability, but he really is doing some incredible things. If he can’t do the ergo session with the boys, he’ll just sit on a watt bike in converses and pump out unbelievable scores. He’s the engine room in that crew.
6 – Douwe De Graaf
Expected University Destination – Harvard University
Pound-for-pound, he’s arguably the best guy in the crew. He’s 80kg and will probably be aiming to pull a 6:10 for our ergo tests in a few weeks. He’s incredibly resilient too – he was pretty ill the night before the National Schools’ Regatta and only got two hours sleep with a temperature. After the time trial, he was in all sorts of trouble but was determined to race. On Sunday, he was absolutely shattered on Sunday but the guys wanted to beat Molesey to prove themselves as the best rowers around.
7 – Alex Langstone-Bolt
Expected University Destination – University of California, Berkeley
An amazing racer with incredible power, Alex drives the crew forward all the time. He’s relentless and was in the stroke seat last year for that exact reason. Matching up against Scotch, he refused to let them get away. He’s one of our most powerful guys and is valuable wherever he sits. He actually switched sides this year, which has proved to be a great success.
Stroke – George Dickinson
Expected University Destination – Princeton University Lightweights
George’s consistency is incredible. Every week, he will take his last score and beat it. Judging by his training ergoes, he’ll be aiming to take a few seconds off his British record in June although we don’t know if he’ll be at weight. He’s matured into an amazing athlete this season – I put him in the stroke seat at the Head of the Charles and haven’t taken him out since.
Cox – Axel De Boissard
Expected University Destination – Princeton University Heavyweights
In my opinion, Axel is the best cox in the country. He knows so much about the sport, from every aspect, and can practically run a session on his own. On the water, he’s essentially an extension of me which is so useful. He’s been recruited into Princeton as a cox, which is really rare.
So how do you beat them? Bobby wasn’t giving anything away, but spoke about the crew’s focus moving forward. “We’ve always stepped on after the National Schools’ Regatta and we’re aiming to make that move again,” he explained. “The boys were relatively subdued after both the Schools’ Head and the National Schools’ Regatta – they enjoyed the victory but Henley is the one they want to win”.
The crew will be racing at the Metropolitan Regatta this weekend, before taking a couple of weeks out to train and re-focus. They’ll make an appearance in open eights at Marlow too, before Henley rolls around.
“We’ve been training a lot with Thames Rowing Club,” said Bobby. “They’ve got an incredibly fast Thames Cup crew and we want to pitch ourselves against them.”
When I asked him whether he believed they were faster than Scotch College, who won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup last season, Bobby is straight in his answer. “We’re lengths ahead of last year’s crew, and they were level with Scotch coming into the enclosures. The boys are driven by last year and know what it takes – this weekend was just another stepping stone on the road to Henley.”
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