NRC very proud to be represented in three venues! Home and Away!

      May 5 & 6 2012

• Merseyside Regatta
Northwich Rowing Club was well represented at Merseyside Regatta on Sat 5th May by the junior squad entering 17 junior crews ranging in age from 13 to 16 years girls and boys racing in sculling and sweep oar boats. This event is hosted by Liverpool Victoria RC at the West Float, Wallesay, racing over a regatta distance of 750 meters.
This venue has completely different water conditions to our river as it is a floating dock and the weather conditions can be challenging for the younger athletes in this open water with few markers to aid steering in coxless boats. Fortunately, Saturday turned out to be a pleasant day for rowers and supporters.
The club returned with 2 wins however that doesn’t reflect the extent of racing achieved by many of the crews particularly the Women’s Junior 14 girl’s squad who raced in doubles in the morning and quads in the afternoon competing in numerous heats coming second and third in their final races.

Womens Novice coxed quad, The junior 16 girls showing their sculling skills with a decisive and comfortable win against Stoke RC.
      Crew: Ash Hudson, Victoria Scott, Alex Walton, Olivia Oakes Cox Jacob Copac

   

Junior 13 coxed quad, this squad of young boys are gaining confidence and ability having worked hard  through winter training , with this crew displaying their technical skills to beat Royal Chester RC by 5 lengths. This will encourage them all for the coming Regatta season.

  Crew: Greg Murphy, Lawrence Williams, George Crouchley, Sam Platt, cox Jack Hudson
The crew was awarded the “Jeremy Jones Roberts Claret Jug” honouring the best rower Liverpool Victoria RC have had. This is presented to encourage young crews to keep motivated and in recognition for their great performance on the day. (Greg Murphy was the only remaining crew member at the venue to receive this lovely trophy, see photo)










Junior coaches Mike Palfreyman, Jed Barlow, Simon Crouchley, Tim Preece and Graham Law were delighted with the standard of racing from all the crews with many reaching the finals.
The club travels to Shrewsbury Regatta on 12/13th May.



• Munich Junior International Regatta 2012 5/6 May 
 Lucy Burgess was delighted to have been selected to represent GB at this event which is the largest and most prestigious junior event other than the Junior World Championships.

Racing on Sat 5th in the heats when first and second places progress to the final sadly Lucy finished third in a very respectable time. She showed her strength of character and technical sculling skills putting up a good fight against a very strong German sculler who took the lead from the start.

This event followed her success the previous weekend winning the junior women’s sculling event at the GB Junior Squad Regatta on Dorney Lake on Sun 29 Apr.

She is dedicated to the sport and has the ambition to represent GB in the single scull at this year's Junior Worlds in Plovdiv - Bulgaria in August thus emulating Matt Langridge's representation. She is on track with this ambition having been the best girl sculler at all the trials so far this year.  After that, selection for Junior Worlds in the single will depend on going fast enough at final trials to convince the selectors that she is a potential finalist.  Whatever happens there, she is virtually certain to be on the team in some crew or other.


• GB Squad World Cup 2012, Belgrade 5/6 May (quoted from British Rowing)

First World Cup of the season with all 12 GB Rowing Team crews that started in the finals at the World Cup in Belgrade finished their journey on the podium as Britain won four golds, six silver and two bronze medals to add to their international-class gold and silver of last night.
Men’s coxed Eight winning silver having had a crew change with Matt Langridge, moving from 7 seat to Stroke the Eight. He explained after the race, “It was great to get out ahead of the Germans in the first half of the race but when we get out in front we need to learn how to stay out there and build on it”.

Britain and Germany were expected to go head to head in this race as World silver and gold medalists respectively. The green of Germany’s bow showed ahead of the yellow of the British boat in the opening 100m.

Britain was not prepared, though, to let them get away. At the first timing point, the GB crew had a margin – but a small one. Scything stroke for stroke down the course the bow-balls surged and dropped, surged and dropped with the power of the crews.

At halfway there was still nothing much to choose between them but GB still had the edge, forcing the Germans to put on more power – unaccustomed as they have become in recent years to being led in any race.
At 1500m the roles were reversed. Britain was four tenths down and you could almost see the confidence surge through their opposition.

Was it all over? With 40 strokes still to come, the Germans picked up their speed and pulled away again. The fast-finishing Dutch came up in a sprint to challenge the British who held on for silver.

The GB crew, whilst disappointed, will take confidence and lessons from this performance.