Last weekend saw Henley Rowing Club junior crews successfully competing against the top crews in the country at the National Schools Regatta. The regatta was held over three days at the National Water Sports Centre, Nottingham. The first day Friday being restricted to under 14 and under 15 events raced over a 1000 metre course and Saturday and Sunday a full range of Junior events from J15 up raced over the full 2000 metre course.

The significant success of the regatta came from the boys quad of Simon Jones, Chris Clark, Peter Wagner, Drew Ford and cox Alex Hall who on Sunday won the Gold Medal in under 15 boys quads and broke the previous record for the event by an incredible 34 seconds. Going into the regatta the boys knew that the main opposition would come from Yarm School and they avoided these in both eliminating round and semi finals which they won easily having established a very early lead in both races within the first 300 metres from where they where able to cruise to the finish. In the final Yarm did give the Henley boys a race but by 500 metres Henley had a half length lead which they extended to a length by half way and by 1500 metres Henley had clear water which they continued to build on finishing nearly two lengths up on Yarm and 4 lengths on third placed Kings Chester.

In the J14 girls doubles Ellen Anthony and Emily Derrig in a very tough race where just pipped for a qualifying place by 0.1 of a second by Lady Eleanor Holles School who went on to take the bronze medal in the final.

To reach the final of the J16 girls doubles Natalie McIntosh and Caitlin Bennett had two very tough races in the second of these races, the semi final, four of the six boats where overlapping at the finish with less than five seconds separating first and the unlucky fourth place fortunately the Henley girls qualified in third place for the final. The final was a repeat of the semi with very close racing the line but in this instance the Henley girls finished out of the medals but in a very commendable fourth place

In the girls Championship Quads event Hannah Smith Willis, Natalie Robinson, Becky Griffths and Lucy Lewington comfortably won their eliminating rounds to qualify for the final. By a 1000 metres in the final the top four boats Wycliffe, St Neots, Henley and Latymer had pulled clear of the field but only two seconds separated all four boats and the race remained this close until the closing metres of the race when Wycliffe and St Neots pulled ahead of Latymer and Henley with the boats crossing the line in that order. The Henley girls having put up a tremendous fight but left without a medal. A similar fate befell the girls J16 quad of Hannah Blair, Amanda Moore, Caitlin Bennet and Natalie McIntosh, who only just managed to qualify for the semi final and then put on a tremendous effort in the semi to go on and win it but unfortunately could not repeat the calibre of performance in the final. To have reached the final was no mean achievement as Caitlin only started rowing this year and Hannah was competing above her status. In the Girls Championship Sculls both Hannah Read and Becky Griffiths had good qualifying races to reach the semi finals where they both finished fourth and third respectively but with only the top two going through they missed out on a place in the final.