With the much-anticipated return of the sweep season, comes the revival of eights racing on the build-up to the Women’s Head and Schools’ Head later in the season, and with three events open for the WJ16 8+ in the latter, many of these girls will be wanting to prove themselves and set the bar high for the rest of the season on the run-up to racing in 2023. This event has 9 entries with many familiar faces making an appearance and several clubs producing two eights, showing the depth of their squads.
Headington School
Headington School has produced many excellent sweep results over the past few years with their current J16s having had an excellent run last year. The most notable of their results was 2nd place at the National Schools’ Regatta and a win at Wallingford Regatta. After a long break and with the focus having switched more to sculling for the beginning of the season, these girls will be desperate to show what they can bring to the table this year. Their club’s absence at recent events makes it hard to judge exactly where they will place, but they could very easily be the ones to watch for the top spot.
Marlow RC
Marlow RC is another club that consistently yields strong junior results, especially on the sculling side of things, and they have also shown that they are able to translate these sculling successes into sweep with 4th and 5th last year in the J15 8+ at Schools’ Head and NSR, respectively. They look like they could be a strong side this year with their J18s taking 2nd place at Fours’ Head and look to perform very well this weekend.
Wallingford RC
Another crew to watch this weekend will be Wallingford RC. They have shown they can be a strong sweep club with positive results at National Schools’ Regatta last year, winning the J15 4+, and a 3rd place at Wallingford LDS in the J16 4x-, behind both the Headington crews. Another notable result that could hint towards their performance on Sunday, is their J16 4+ who placed 1st at Wallingford Regatta last year, showing their potential in sweep boats.
Henley RC
Henley RC is notorious for breeding strong athletes in both the sculling and sweep disciplines as proven by their clean sweep at Fours’ Head last weekend. However their J16s have yet to prove themselves in the eight, finishing behind Marlow at both Schools’ Head and NSR, and 3rd place at Wallingford Regatta. These girls will be hungry for a win this weekend and I can see them placing in the top 3.
Prediction
Other notable competitors include Godolphin and Latymer, who were 12th overall out of the J15 eights at Schools’ Head, and Latymer Upper School, who placed 5th at both Schools’ Head and Wallingford Regatta last year. Both clubs also had some good results at Fours’ Head, so it will be interesting to see what their J16s can do.
There look to be quite a few crews gunning for the top spot coming into this weekend but I predict that Headington will take the win this weekend with Marlow and Henley coming second and third respectively.
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