What a whirlwind the past months have been. Our full summer season, the schools most successful season ever, completed.
Since I last wrote, we have competed in the Victorian State Championship regatta, the Scotch Mercantile regatta, and the domestic season culminated in the Australian Rowing Championships at the end of March, before continuing to train into the autumn and now winter.
The Victorian state championships went very well on a windy and rainy weekend in Ballarat, picking up wins in the U21 coxed quad, the Open coxless quad and the A Grade coxed quad, along with a handful of medals in smaller boats before unfortunately Sunday’s racing was cut short due to bad weather. It was very pleasing to confirm that we were that fastest quad in the state and built our momentum towards the nationals.
Two weeks later we headed to Nagambie to race in the scotch mercantile regatta. Due to the scheduling of the racing, we would only be able to race in one event. Additionally, due to one of the many quirks of Australian schoolboy rowing, the only quad event offered was the coxed schoolboy quad. However, through the season we had not been able to do a great deal of coxless racing, and were looking for more opportunities to race this. We were also already satisfied from the season that we are the fastest schoolboy quad in Victoria, and felt no need to prove this again when we could instead get valuable coxless experience. As a result of this, after writing to the regatta secretaries, we were able to race in the 2nd schoolboy eights division, in our coxless quad. This was a fantastic experience for the boys, who stepped up to the challenge and put down an explosive piece, to beat out all but a couple of the eights.
A week later and we were off to the National championships, originally intended to be held in Sydney but moved to Nagambie in Victoria due to the flooding that had affected Sydney. A week-long regatta, on a lake that we’d been racing on only seven days ago. Not a bad outcome for us.
For the boys in the quad, there were a few main goals to be achieved during the week. Firstly, half of the quad were out to defend their title of J18 double champions that they had earned the year before. Secondly, looking to improve last years result of a silver medal in the schoolboy quad (coxed), and finally to challenge for the first time the J18 quad event in the coxless.
The week started with the small boats, and by Wednesday morning the double had retained it’s title in style, national champions for two years running. After that, we were into the real business of the week – doing well enough in the quads to justify a trip to race at Henley. After the double we got straight into action in the coxless which had a fairly small entry field. The hope was to race the heat and then progress straight to the final, avoiding the repechage and the extra fatigue that could come with that. It is probably worth listing a couple of quick details about the course at Nagambie at this point. As you would expect, Nagambie is a 2km buoyed racing course, and a maximum of 7 lanes were racing during the nationals. This led to 6 lane finals, but sometimes 7 lane heats and reps. Nagambie also has a reputation for being a fiercely unfair course, due to the prevailing crosswind that results in significant lane advantage for one side of the course and a steep disadvantage for crews on the other.
In the heat of the coxless, we were unlucky enough to draw lane 6 on a windy day, yet managed to put in a sterling effort to retain a 3rd place in the heat, losing only to the crews in lanes 1 and 2 by less than a second. Particularly impressively, this was the closest I had seen anyone coming through from the outside lanes all day, but it wasn’t quite enough and we were forced into the repechage which we managed to win comfortably.
The final came around, and we were lined up against the reigning champions, St Augustines from Sydney, about to attempt to take their event out from under them. From the start, we led the field with St Augstines, locked in our own battle. It was almost as if there were no other crews on the course, just a 2-lane race. The conditions were blustery and a little rough, suiting St Augustines who train on the Sydney Harbour, and pushing us out of our comfort zone. After a titanic effort, we placed in second, picking up a silver medal and losing out to a truly outstanding crew in a fantastic race.
The final focus of the week was the schoolboy quad, the coxed event, which we were feeling confident in. We were undefeated in the event so far this season, including having won it up at the New South Wales state championships. The pressure was on for nationals, we could be sure that there were crews out to get us, and now after chatting with other coaches after the nationals I know that there were crews with their entire race plans based around how to deal with us. We started out well, winning the heat in a fierce battle against Radford College, from Canberra. Our semi was then raced on the afternoon of the coxless final, and after an exhausting and draining morning, the boys managed to squeeze out a 2nd place in the semi, confirming the place in the final, where it was all to play for. Kinross Wolaroi, who had beat us in the semi, made it their business to beat us off the start, seize a lead, and do everything they could to stay there. They succeeded, and through the 1000-meter mark we were just down on them, sitting in silver by just over a second. Kinross’ start began to hurt them at this point, and we wound them in, taking the lead by the 1500, and seizing the win by 3.7 seconds.
So, 2 golds and a silver at nationals, the most successful season the school has ever seen. These results should be enough for the stewards to pre-qualify us for the Fawley, fingers crossed. Over the past weeks we have upped the training intensity, upped the mileage covered weekly, and doubled down the focus on the goal of Henley. Training has been a little spotty in the full 4x-, with a couple of minor injuries and illnesses, but despite this we are still gaining speed every session.
From a logistical standpoint, the Fawley entry is in, flights are booked and the boys are raring to go. Both of us that coach the crew are very excited to bring the crew to race on our native water. We take off in less than a week as I write this.
We are Gippsland Grammar and will see you on the start line.
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