The weather at the National Water Sports Centre, Nottingham over the Jubilee weekend 3/4 June may have been dismal and disappointing but the results returned by the visiting crew members were bright and promising !
Ed Grisedale raced in the "Sculls Cup", Championship Single sculls with very strong contenders for the title. He had the "race of his life" as Jed Barlow, his coach, explained. Ed was out of the medal places with 200m to go but his determination helped to drive him to a very close finish. He powered over the line to win a Bronze medal by a mere half a second. All the medal positions were covered by about 3 seconds!
Gold was won by Tideway Scullers School, Silver by Westminster School.
Lucy Burgess raced in the "Internationals' Cup", Championship Girls Single Sculls, winning her semi final race decisively by 12 seconds, meeting her rival Katie Bartlett of Nottingham RC in the final. Lucy recovered from a bad start to be level at 1,000m halfway marker. Unfortunately, after a ding dong battle she narrowly lost out in the sprint for the line by two seconds to win a well deserved Silver medal with all the other competitors trailing well behind.
Lucy will be as determined as ever when this contest may well be resumed at Women's Henley next week when they both chase the Elite Sculls title.
Two up and coming young scullers who have been making their mark, Finn Lawton and Harry Blake gained a lot of experience from this challenging competition. Both young men did well considering they only started rowing a year ago! They both have the potential to progress further, so watch out for the build up to next year!
Finn missed qualification for the semi final in the J16 single sculls by 0.5 seconds and Harry finished fourth in the semi final of the J15 single sculls needing to be second to progress.
The two Junior14 girls crews attending the Regatta for the first time enjoying the moment, competing very well, to the delight of family members and their coaches Graham Law and Tim Preece. Both crews raced the processional time trial in coxed quads with NRC "A" coming 12th out of 40 crews. They progressed to the semi final gallantly finishing in third place in their heat with first and second going to the final. The experience will encourage all of them and certainly boost their confidence for future races.
All eyes and hopes will be focused on the third and final World Cup Regatta in Munich on 16 & 17 June when Northwich Rowing Club will be cheering on the Men's Eight with Matthew Langridge in the seven seat! Good Luck to the team GB!
