This year’s Wallingford Regatta marks the first time the event has been held since 2019. It is always a popular regatta amongst junior crews as it offers athletes the chance to race side by side over 2000m at the same venue as Nationals. There are fourteen scullers entered into the Women’s Junior 18 Single Sculls and, with many of them currently trialling for GB, there will be lots of high-quality racing on Sunday.
Sir William Perkins’s School Boat Club
SWPS have entered three scullers into the WJ18 singles at Wallingford Regatta: A Cowell, A Patient and M O’Donnell. All three of them raced at November trials earlier this season with Cowell coming an impressive 12th. She was also invited to attend a GB training day last December. Cowell is certainly a brilliant sculler and I’m sure she will do well on the weekend. Patient raced in the J16 double at Junior Inter-Regionals last weekend, placing second and O’Donnell has been in their top quad both this season and last season. Whilst these two scullers are undoubtedly very fast, if the winner is to come from SWPS, I reckon it would be Cowell who would come out on top.
Peterborough City Rowing Club
Peterborough have entered two scullers: D Piccaver and E Darrington. Since the GB World Class Start Programme moved to Peterborough in 2020, they have had great success, including winning the Junior Women’s Double at both the National Schools’ Regatta and Henley Women’s Regatta last year and making the semi-finals of the Diamond Jubilee at Henley Royal Regatta. Darrington was a member of that quad last summer. She also came 56th at GB trials earlier this season and at last year’s Junior Sculling Regatta, Darrington beat Cowell over 2000m in the JW16 singles but then lost to her by just half a second at the British Rowing Junior Championships. If this is anything to go by, we are in for some extremely tight racing this weekend. Not much is known about Peterborough’s other entrant, Piccaver, so she definitely has the potential to cause an upset this weekend.
Wycliffe Junior Rowing Club
Wycliffe have had a fantastic season so far. They have had multiple sculling wins and some brilliant performances at GB trials. They have only entered one sculler into the JW18 1x: E Sekinger. She came 24th at November trials and more recently won the B final in the pair at GB Small Boats last weekend. Wycliffe are undoubtedly one of the top sculling clubs in the country at the moment and, as such, I expect Sekinger will do very well this weekend.
Reading Blue Coat School Boat Club
Reading Blue Coat have entered two scullers: A Carpenter and Z Fearn. Of these two it is likely that Carpenter is the faster sculler. At last year’s National Schools’ Regatta, she came second in the B Final in the JW18 singles. At Reading Small Boats Head earlier this season, she beat Cowell and O’Donnell. However, she hasn’t raced much since then so it will be interesting to see where she places this weekend.
Other Entries
Other entries include M Perry-Smith from Putney High School Boat Club. She was in the six seat of their first eight at Henley Royal Regatta and stroke of their first quad at the National Schools’ Regatta last year but then didn’t race at this year’s Schools’ Head so it is hard to know where she will finish this weekend. Also entered are two singles from the South African Schools Rowing Union – little is known about them so they could cause some upsets. Also entered is H Creasy from Exeter Rowing Club. Exeter had some fast sculling boats last year, so she too could cause an upset or two.
Prediction
The WJ18 singles appears to be a four-horse race between Cowell, Darrington, Sekinger and Carpenter. These four are all excellent scullers and are definitely worthy of the win. It promises to be an exciting race, but I think it is likely that Wycliffe Junior Rowing Club’s E Sekinger will come out on top.
Steady Steight
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