The head season is fully underway with Wallingford Long Distance Sculls on the horizon. This event will take place on Saturday 30th September. The course runs a hefty 4250m and with over 30 entries into the WJ18 single sculls, this category will surely be a competitive one. Considering it’s the beginning of the season; there is a lot to play for. With the lack of recent racing to make judgement from, I’m sure many results from this weekend will be surprising and have no doubt there will be a few underdogs.
Though this event doesn’t have any entrants who have dominated national events in the 1x, the draw has some big names, many of whom have spent the summer representing their country at international level events. Although many of them haven’t recently raced in a single, undoubtedly the general standard of sculling on Saturday will be very strong.
Sir William Perkins’ School Rowing Club
This boat club has many entries, demonstrating a vast cohort and good squad depth with many of them being returners to this event from last year. This includes Patient, who placed second in the Women’s Ch2x at National Schools’ last season. This displays a strength in sculling and suggests a promising result for this weekend. One must take into account that the Wallingford course is much longer than 2k and head racing is a very different format to a regatta which can change results a lot.
Henley Rowing Club
Henley RC has also entered a considerable number of rowers into this event including those that have represented the country internationally over the summer. Their ongoing success is testament to a gold-standard (quite literally) junior women’s rowing program so it would be extremely to disregard them. This includes Simmons who placed 4th in the W4- at Coupe de La Jeunesse and Smith who raced in the Coupe 8+ that came 1st. Although both the 4-and 8+ are sweep events, these rowers are of great calibre and are most definitley similarly skilled in a single scull. This weekend they will be fighting for the top spots alongside a few other of their teammates who rowed as part of the WCH8+ and WCH4x that both came 3rd in the A final at the National Schools’ regatta.
Molesey Boat Club
Molesey has entered one rower, Olivia Cheesmur who recently rowed at the World Rowing U19 Championships in the 4x, placing 3rd. She was also bow-steering the crew that won the Ch2x event at NSR ’23 that the above SWPS came second in, by over 3 seconds. This was her second time racing in a GB vest, after qualifying for Coupe de la Jeunesse in 2022, as a J16. This shows an incredibly consistent sculling ability that holds her in very good stead to take the win this weekend.
Other entries
Other notable entries are a host of crews from Latymer Upper School including members of their 8+ that brought the club back into the spotlight at NSR, Lea Rowing Club, and Pangbourne.
Prediction
I predict that Cheesemur will come first, followed by Smith and then either Patient or Simmons. It is very difficult to predict results this early in the head season as there aren’t many recent results to go off so I would anticipate some unexpected events this weekend.
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