The last few weeks have been a busy period for all the squads at NCRA.
Met Regatta
The majority of our Senior squad members and some of our Junior squad were racing at the Met Regatta in June.
Our Men’s 4- kicked off Saturday’s racing, finishing 21st in a field of 46 finishing 8th in the C final.
Next up were our two lightweight Women scullers, Liv & Aline, who finished 4th and 24th respectively in a field of 38, finishing ahead of many heavyweight scullers in a fierce cross-wind. Aline finish 7th in the C Final and Liv finished 3rd in the A final winning the Lightweight Women’s 1 x event.
In the afternoon, our Women’s 4- finished 16th in the time trial, finishing 8th in the B final later in the day.
Byron racing in the Op 1x event finished 24th out of a field of 44 scullers.
On Sunday, we had most of our squad members racing in singles, with Liv & Aline back in the Lightweight Women’s 1x. Liv finished second in the 1x field and Aline finished 21st. In the C final, Aline finished 7th. In the A final Liv finished second, winning the Lightweight Women’s 1x category and only 4 seconds off Henley Royal Regatta finalist Lauren Henry.
Our Women’s 4- finished joint 15th in the time trial securing a place in the B final where they finished 8th.
Sunday’s racing was concluded with Tom, Steve and Finn racing in the Op 1x with only 0.4 seconds separating Finn & Steve in the time trial. In the E final Tom finished 5th and the B Final was a closely fought race to the 1k marker where Steve moved out in the second half to finish 4th, 6 seconds ahead of Finn in 7th.
Henley Women’s Regatta
We had three crews racing at Henley Women’s Regatta.
Our women’s 8+ who were having to race up a category in Champ 8+ due to some of the girls having raced at Henley Royal Regatta last season faced stiff competition in the first round against Edinburgh University.
Aline was racing Aspirational LWT 1x in her first Henley Women’s Regatta. An impressive debut saw her make the quarter finals before being knocked out by the eventual winner, Cambridge.
Liv was racing in Champ LWT 1x after her win in this event last year. Facing off against international competition from Galway, Liv dominated from start to finish, breaking both the course record for Champ LWT 1x and Champ 1x in a new time of 5:36.
Holland Beker
After a busy weekend at Henley Women’s Regatta, Liv was off to Amsterdam to race at the Holland Beker regatta with a small group of selected GB athletes.
On the Saturday, racing in the U23 1x Liv dominated the heavyweight competitors, winning the race by almost 15 seconds.
On the Sunday, racing back in the LW 1x event, Liv came up against tough competition in experienced international sculler Tosca Kettler from the Netherlands. In what was a close battle in the first 1km, Liv moved out to a length and half lead in the 3 rd 500m and was able to hold off a last 250m sprint from
Kettler to win by 1.5 seconds.
Liv will now be vying for selection for the U23 World Championships in July.
Henley Royal Regatta
Our Wyfold 4- avoided having to race at Qualifiers through pre-qualification.
Our Wargrave 8+ and Open Men’s pairs both raced at Qualifyers, but narrowly missed out on qualification with very limited spaces up for grabs this year.
On the Tuesday, our Wyfold 4- drew Tyne RC which proved to be a tough race with the boys being knocked out in the first round.
Our Senior Squad will now focus on selection for the England Team on the 10th July whilst our Junior Squad will be racing at the British Rowing Championships.
