Henley Rowing Club

Founded 1839

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NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Four Medals for Henley RC at Nat Champs

Despite the atrocious conditions last Friday which disrupted racing and saw 55 races cancelled Henley Rowing Clubs juniors had a succesfull three days at last weeks National Rowing Champions of Great Britain held in Nottingham, returning from the event with three Silver medals for the girls including the Clubs first medal in the top event of Girls Junior Eights and a Bronze for the boys.

With many of the Friday heats cancelled the organisers ran time trials to select crews for Sundays finals which meant it was difficult to gauge the true strength of the opposition.

The WJ15 crew of Florence Lock, Lizzie Blair, Gemma Hall, Hayley Lloyd and Sophie Lloyd (cox) started their bid for a medal on Friday in the appalling weather conditions and had a 4 length lead when disaster struck. A large wave forced one of the blades under the boat which came to an abrupt stop 500 metres from the line. The girls managed to recover and once underway again they made impressive speed but were not quite able to take the second place that would have guaranteed a place in the final. Under normal circumstances third place should have meant a place in the repecharge and a second chance to make the final. However, soon after the girl's heat, further racing was deemed unsafe and the afternoons racing had to be abandoned and as a result the draw for the final was decided on the times of the heats which was not in their favour and they were eliminated.

They did manage to make the final in the WJ16 coxless quads, a year above their age group and came a very creditable fourth in which they encountered not only strong headwinds but also the Henley/Maidenhead composite crew who achieved the Silver medal.

The girls Junior Eight was a composite with Maidenhead RC, the five Henley girls being Kate Chapman, Orla Millar, Kelley Whittaker, Ailsa Buck and cox Raffie Varley. In the final Henley where slow off the start and at 500 metres gone where in thid place but with very little seperating the first four crews, by half way Henley had pulled back to just a second behind leaders George Heriot from Scotland but all four crews where seperated by less than a length. After this Heriots and Henley started to pull away from the pack but Henley where unable to close down Heriots and had to settle for the Silver medal.

Orla and Kate then jumped into a Coxless Four with club mates Emily Derrig and Alice Skinner. Early in the race Haberdashers Monmouth where disqualified for interferance and stopped rowing. By 500 metres Molesey Boat Club had a length on Henley who in turn had a length on St Peters School, with the rest of the field two to three lengths further back. Whilst Molesey continued to extend their lead Henley and St Peters remained close through out the race exchanging pushes at regular intervals. Henley managed to maintain the lead to take a second Silver medal.

The third Silver medal for the girls came in Under 16 Quads when Henley girls Chantal Cummings and Pippa Whittaker teamed up with Maidenhead girls Alice Ancora and Aimee Broadbent. This was another Henley/ Maidenhead composite to suffer at the hands of the Scots when they where beaten into second place by a Strathclyde Park/ Loch Lomond Composite.

The boys Bronze medal came in Junior Coxless Pairs when Sam Hayes of Henley teamed up with Cameron Smith of Pangbourne College.

Henley also had a Junior 15 Quad that won its heat comfortably despite the conditions, guaranteeing a place in the final. However, further heats were cancelled and the final was run instead as a time trial with eleven crews which disappointed the boys.

Whilst no Gold medals this was a very succesful championships for the club with the junior squad being somewhat depleted as four of its members have been selected to represent Great Britain. Jenny Arnold will be competing for GB in the Coup de Jeunesse in Varese in Italy, and Alex Walker, Chris Clark and Drew Ford preparing to go to Bejing for the Junior World Championships

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