Keeping our fingers crossed and praying to the weather gods, WEHORR should take place this Saturday. The biggest women’s rowing event of the year: crews will have been targeting this race for months, and after a troubled winter of disrupted water time across the country, it will be a relief to see it go ahead.
The Senior Pennant is awarded to the highest placing crew deemed as “below an international standard”. No members of the crew can have competed internationally within the last three years at U23 or Senior level, nor can the crew have four or more members who won the Senior Pennant last year. This makes this category all the more intriguing as we see which crews are shaping up at a developmental level to be ones to look out for in years to come. The event contains its largest ever amount of entries (57), with its usual mixture of club and university crews, making it one of the most exciting categories of the weekend.
Oxford Brookes University
Brookes have no fewer than five crews entered into WEHORR, with four deemed “senior eligible”. Yet again the club demonstrate their extraordinary strength in depth and, having won the Senior Pennant at the last edition of WEHORR, they will want to defend their title. Brookes B will be the ones tasked with doing so. The crew have recent experience on the Tideway, with victory over Oxford in last month’s boat race fixture. This will give them confidence heading into the longer race. Whilst their top athletes will be in the first boat, the standard of the B boat is likely to be almost as strong. Other crews will be hard pushed to beat them and it’s likely Brookes C will not be far behind.
Edinburgh University
Edinburgh have long shown themselves as one of the universities to watch out for, and they will be aiming to push up the rankings in 2024. Having placed third in the Senior Pennant last year, behind Brookes A and Thames A, they will see the ineligibility of these crews in this category this year as a positive and an opportunity to beat their B crews. This crew will likely feature athletes who in years to come will pull on GB vests, such is the historical success of Edinburgh’s programme, and they will want to capitalise on their current eligibility. They come off a recent third place result at BUCS Head and, with rivals Durham and Newcastle ineligible for the Senior Pennant, Edinburgh will aim to improve and step on this weekend.
Thames
Such is the size and strength of Thames in 2024 that their B and C crews will undoubtedly be going toe to toe with some of the top A crews in the country. Six Thames crews in total are entered into WEHORR, five Senior Pennant eligible. They have started the year as they mean to go on, winning the Casey and Rayner Cup tideway derbies against Vesta and London respectively, and their B boat comfortably beating Cambridge in the recent boat race fixture. Last year the B boat placed sixth in the Senior Pennant, with their C boat just 5 seconds behind in eighth. It’s likely this year their B crew in particular will jump up the rankings and it will be interesting to see how close the C crew can get.
Vesta
Vesta can never be written off. The Tideway club are always competitive in the hunt for pennants, winning the Senior Eights category at Quintin Head in January. They placed seventh in this category at WEHORR last year and will want their A boat to be beating Brookes and Thames’ C and D crews. You can never write off a club racing on their home water and Vesta could be in the mix, if not for a pennant then for a top-three place.
Nottingham University
Amongst the multitude of Thames and Brookes crews, Nottingham are another university eligible for this pennant. Whilst they are likely to be off the pace of Brookes and Thames B they could still put in a significant shift to place them higher than their ninth place last year. At BUCS Head two weekends ago they were fifth in the Champ Eights, a long way off third place Edinburgh. Closing some of this gap would be seen as a significant improvement, as would getting the better of other university crews- the likes of Durham and University of London’s B boats.
Prediction
It is hard to call which of Brookes or Thames’ B boats will have the upper hand this weekend. The two clubs are yet to face off against each other this season and will be full of confidence, fresh from their recent victories on the Tideway. I think Brookes may just edge it, scraping victory ahead of Thames. Edinburgh will be best of the rest in third.
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