Henley Women’s Regatta

Last week, UoNBC saw 17 athletes head south to compete in Henley Women’s Regatta.

For our intermediate squad, this was their first time racing down the Henley stretch and their second ever race. Following their bronze medal in Beginner 2 at BUCS last weekend, the development 4+ were excited to compete in a more open category. After a good row in their time trial, they placed 18^th, just missing out on a spot in the side-by-side racing by 3 seconds. The aspirational 2x also attacked their race, placing 28^th in a difficult category. We look forward to seeing all of them next year to build on these results.

The senior squad were also eager to be out of Nottingham and racing at such a high-quality regatta. The senior aspirational 2x raced their time trial well after having only been out in the boat a handful of time and qualified for the side-by-side racing where they were pitted against two GB start athletes from Twickenham. Despite the 2x throwing everything at them, the Twickenham girls power pulled through knocking our double out on the Friday evening. The 2^nd quad had a disrupted run-in to the regatta with 2 of the crew having to isolate, leading to substitutions having to be found. Even though they had never been in the crew before, the quad had a very clean race and unfortunately missed out on qualifying for side-by-side racing by just 0.8 seconds.

 The 1^st quad had a very smooth and relaxed time-trial placing 5^th and putting them in a good spot on the draw for the side-by-side racing. On Saturday, they were against London Rowing Club. Our girls executed their plan to perfection drawing an early lead and then comfortably holding that lead through the rest of the course. This put our crew through to the quarterfinals against Marlow Rowing Club – a crew that had beaten us in the time trials. Our crew set off quickly, taking half a length off Marlow at the start. Through the first half of the race, they slowly extended this lead to a length by the halfway point. In the 2^nd half, they Nottingham crew pushed away again finishing 2 ½ lengths ahead.

The semi-final was against Tideway Scullers School – the favourites to win. Our crew sprinted off the start with a ¾ length lead which TSS gradually closed through the next 500m until it was neck and neck through the halfway point. Into the 2^nd half, the power of the TSS crew started to show pushing ahead of our crew to take the win. The TSS boat went through to the final and won the event by an easy margin.

All our crews should be proud of themselves with some great results. For many, this is the last race of the year with 1 quad looking ahead to Henley Royal Regatta in August.

Summary of Results

Aspirational 2x (A) – Top 16

Aspirational 2x (B) – 28^th

Development 4+ – 18^th

Aspirational 4x (A) – Top 4

Aspirational 4x (B) – 17^th