London, United Kingdom. 8th October 2021, 5 pm BST
University of London Boat Club has today announced the appointment of Antony ‘Smithy’ Smith as the new Head Coach for ULBC.
Antony has a long and impressive history of coaching high-performance athletes. Most recently leading the girls at Lady Eleanor Holles School to back-to-back wins at National Schools’ Regatta in the Championship Eight between 2019-2021.
Prior to becoming Head of Rowing at LEH, Antony worked under Bobby Thatcher at St Paul’s School. He coached athletes to multiple NSR, Henley Royal Regatta and World Championship victories; in the five years at SPS Rowing, Antony oversaw the development of the legendary 2018 cohort from J14s through to J18s.
It’s this devotion to long-term athlete and programme development that makes Smithy the perfect successor to Hugo Gulliver at ULBC:
“I am thrilled to be taking in this role at a time when ULBC is clearly on the up, as shown by last season’s results.”
ULBC remains the UK’s most successful university rowing programme, with 45 wins at Henley Royal Regatta, representation at every Olympic Regatta since 1960, and a combined total of 135 Olympic and World Championship Medals.
Most recently, in the 2021 season, ULBC won the Prince Albert Challenge Cup and were finalists and semi-finalists in the Island and Temple Challenge Cups respectively, thus making them the highest represented university at the semi-final stage of HRR 2021. In addition, they won the Academic Eights, Championship Fours and Championship Pairs at Henley Women’s Regatta, and took a mixture of gold, silver and bronze medals at BUCS regatta.
The programme caters for men and women from the 18 colleges and institutions that combine to form the University of London and is a designated British Rowing High-Performance Centre.
Alumni include Paralympic gold medalist James Fox and World Champion, and Henley Royal victor, Emily Craig.
You can read more about ULBC on their Club Aggregate Profile.
We look forward to watching the development of one of the UK’s foremost rowing programmes under one of the country’s most reputable coaches.
“I know what the club is capable of and I look forward to becoming part of the ULBC pedigree.”
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