Unofficially Thames Rowing Club

So, Henley Women’s Regatta has come and gone again.

TRC had a total of 7 entries, with another 3 composites.

Lenny Kennedy had a great win in the elite coxless 4 with her composite, under-23 crew, beating Vesta in the final.  And, cox Olivia Cook, stepped into the final at the last minute for another under-23 crew in elite coxed fours, to take a victory over a very impressive City of Oxford crew.

Our elite women’s 8, had a tough draw with Yale University in the first round, and despite building on good racing at Reading regatta the weekend before, were unable to maintain contact and lost by 2 lengths – Yale winning in a time of 4.50.  Yale went on to win the event with a new course record of 4.40, against the under-23 Great Britain 8.  The under-23 boat had a fairly traumatic weekend – losing their stroke and cox before the race, and also doubling up in other events.  Lenny was also part of that crew and Olivia again stepped into the cox’s seat for the final.  As a warm up for Henley Royal in a couple of weeks, it looks like their could be great racing in the Remenham Challenge – with the GB senior 8, the GB under-23’s, Yale, a German crew and our Thames boat pre-qualified and 3 more to come through qualifiers on Friday.

For HWR 2009 though, it seemed that it was a weekend of hard racing for all our crews:

Debs, in the lightweight single, lost by one length in her first round to the eventual winner of the event.

Our lightweight double, Harriet and Bryony, took on a crew from Kingston, Canada, and despite losing a lot of ground off the start, managed to scull back to 3/4 of length by the finish.

The 2 coxed fours (doubling up in the elite eight) took on Yale (again) and a TSS/UL composite, both missing out on a place in the semi-finals by just half a length.

Catherine O’Riordan in a London Youth Rowing composite junior quad lost out to eventual finalists Henley by 1 1/2 lengths.

Finally, our two intermediate 8s, both started their campaign in the time trials on Friday morning.  Both crews successfully achieved the standard to qualify for racing, which, with a number of athletes who had only started to row last September, was a huge achievement.  The A crew took on Barnes Bridge in their first round and won by 4 lengths, unfortunately City of Cambridge were too strong in the next round to end their regatta.  The B crew went out in their first round race to Putney Town.  The event was ultimately won by a very tidy looking York City crew in a tightly fought race with Vesta, in a time of 5.04.

Everyone’s thanks go to our great coaching team for all their hard work this year and for putting up with us: Merv Lee, Alistair Loweth, Annie Christiansen, Kim Wells, Sarah Leys and James Elder.

Photos by Annie