Regatta season has finally dawned upon us, (as well as some good weather and storm-less springs so far)! Wallingford regatta marks the first of many exciting races to commence come the summer season. Events like School’s Head and Quintin Head have provided a decent marker for the speed of these crews and will help them to identify their competition within regatta style-races. This event will be highly exciting to watch as the athletes tune into probably one of their first regatta seasons due to COVID interruptions for the junior racing experiences.
Surbiton High School
With three eights entered, presumably their A-C crews, much is expected from these girls. Having had an exceptional 35 second lead into first place at School’s Head, Surbiton have proved that they are the BC to beat and I know that this standard will be carried on into Wallingford. The crews have a great list of results behind them which will no doubt be interrupted by their race this weekend!
Latymer Upper School
Despite placing 6th in Schools head in their category, Latymer still have some impressive results under their belt such as a 1st place finish at Wallingford Head and also 3rd at Hammersmith Head, proving that these results will hopefully place them considerably high within the category. Since they have improved their endurance and head season style of racing, it will be interesting to see how they can step up to the fierce competition that Wallingford holds, following on from their placement at School’s Head which I feel is slightly below what they were initially aiming for.
Lady Eleanor Holles Rowing Club
With a close 2nd place at School’s Head and Hammermsith Head, as well as a third place at Quintin, LEH will be looking to replicate their achievement off the bat in their first regatta. I am sure they will be feeling pretty confident about what they can bring to the race and will no doubt be looking to beat the current and constant upholding winners (Surbiton) of the recent events so far.
Henley Rowing Club
Shown decent calibre throughout the Head season, with an unexpected 5th place at School’s Head, Henley will be making sure to bounce back from this and will very much be going from strength to strength to ensure that they fall within the top band of competitors. With a boat club that has a high reputation of producing strong girls 8s, Wallingford Regatta will definitely be one of many regattas that the crew can use to further enhance their strength and racing skills to turn out on top.
Wimbledon High School
A great performance at School’s Head with 3rd place shows that they are relatively quick, and by being only 5 seconds slower than LEH, have proved to be a challenge. However with their two competitors being slightly ahead in speed, Wimbledon will need to show strength to keep their performance up. With a 2nd place at Hammersmith Head (although being a while ago), one can only expect that they will be looking to go off of this result and produce an aggressive race.
Other schools competing consist of Sir William’s Perkins BC, St Paul’s Girls School BC, Kingston Grammar School BC and Headington Girls’ School BC, all of which I know will create a good race. I predict that the usual band of Surbiton, LEH and Wimbledon will place on top, followed by possibly a few underdogs such as Latymer Upper, Henley and Headington considering they are crews who get considerably faster come the summer and regatta season.
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