British Rowing Junior Championships

Whilst the rest of the club were competing in the final night of Town Bumps, the Cantabs juniors were travelling to Nottingham to race at the British Rowing Junior Championships that weekend.

Omnium

6 athletes from the Junior Development Squad took part in the J14 Sculling Skills Omnium. Livvy Durrant, Rosin Scanlon, Paolo Cicolecchia, Oscar Coppins, William Woodward and Amun Vartak took on 274 junior scullers from all over the country in only the 2nd year the Cantabs juniors have entered.

The Omnium involves completing skills such as standing rigger dips, 250m slaloms around lane buoys, standing up in the 1x and turning around 360 degrees and sitting back down, and a 500m piece.

William and Oscar did particularly well to finish 9th and 25th, respectively, out of 61 J14s in the 1x event.

J16s

Conditions on the Saturday morning were ideal for the time trials and, with a glassy lake, all Cantabs crews put on some strong performances. The W.J16.4+ had a solid weekend of racing, coming 6th in their time trial and fighting hard in their semi-final to qualify for the A final. Having won blades in Town Bumps as W4 and therefore racing 6 times already that week, the girls did really well to finish 5th overall.

 

The J16.4+ had an equally impressive weekend, finishing 6th in their time trial. Their semi-final was a fantastic race in which they beat Henley RC by over 3 seconds and earned a place in the A final, also finishing 5th.

A W.J16.4x- crew raced with an aim of gaining some useful experience at a national event. The girls put in a good performance to come 4th in the B final and impressed spectators with their technique despite rowing together for the first time on the morning of the time trial.

J17s

Phil Sosnin and Rob Steyn raced in the J18.2x, having a good race despite being J17s themselves, qualifying for the C final.

Lying 5th off the start, the boys had the strongest middle 1k of the field, threatening the leaders at the finish and coming 3rd. Coach Andy Johnson said,

this was a very impressive and promosing start to their campaign for their coming J18 year

J18s

The W.J18.4x- had high hopes this year after coming close to a bronze medal at the event last year. Eva Hill, Izzy Ritchie, Ellen Goode and Bex Hawthorne had a very strong time trial race and were delighted to come 2nd, a great reward for the training they’d been putting in alongside their A-level revision and exams. The girls had another good race in the semi-final on the Sunday, where they finished 2nd to progress to the A final.

Unfortunately, an illness going around at the event struck one of the girls on the Sunday, meaning they were unsure whether they would be able to race their final at all. Determined to finish the season, the girls made it to the start line and left everything on the water, finishing a respectable 5th despite their bad luck.

Junior captains Izzy Ritchie and Eva Hill said,

Many thanks to the entire junior coaching team for their support and the time they put into developing the junior squads. With 3 of the 4 crews sent this weekend making the A finals, BRJC 2018 is proof of the growing strength of the Cantabs junior squads. With a strong cohort of J16s about to move up to J18 racing in September, exciting times lie ahead for Cantabs junior rowing!

Thank you to all of the coaches and parents who made taking part possible.

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