With two full trailers and 57 athletes eager to show what they could do, Leander set off for a busy weekend in Boston, Lincolnshire.
The trial was over two days starting with a 2k ergo test for all athletes on the Saturday. Leander athletes performed well on the ergo producing some strong scores including many PBs.
Sunday was a 5k time trial on the river Witham in pairs and singles.
The Men’s division was up first with some very encouraging results. In the pairs category, Leander’s Matt Rossiter and Jacob Dawson were the winners in style producing the fastest time of the day by 14 seconds. Felix Drinkall and Lenny Jenkins were in 3rd place and Ryan Todhunter in 4th with Nick Farrell and Josh Bowesman-Jones in 7th.
Young gap year boys Matt Johnston and March Turnball came 19th and were the fastest under 21 pair of the day with James Graham and Hilton Harvey 25th.
In the singles, Seb Devereux came 2nd overall – just 0.1 seconds off winning overall. Leander showed strength in depth achieving six in the top eight of the men’s singles. 3rd Tobias Schroder, 4th Rory Harris, 5th Olly Costley, 7th Miles Devereux , 8th Sam Meijer.
Miles Devereux was the fastest U23 sculler and gap year Matt Long was the fastest u23 lightweight.
Matt Beechey, Leander Men’s Chief Coach said: “There were some good individual performances over the weekend both on the ergo and the water. The first trial is always a good benchmark to see how our autumn training has gone”.
For the 2nd division it was the turn of the women, with the decision made this season that all athletes would compete the first trial in single sculls regardless of whether they were sweepers or scullers.
In the Open women’s event Ruth Siddorn was Leander Club’s fastest sculler, coming home in 6th place just ahead of Chloe Brew in 7th, Rebecca Wilde 8th, Susie Dear 10th, Imogen Magner 12th, Annie Campbell-Orde 13th Eleanor Brinkhoff 15th, Juliette Perry 17th, Daisy Bellamy 20th and Karen Bennett 21st.
Ross Hunter, Leander Women’s Chief Coach said: “This has been a great start to the GB trailing season, with none of the senior world championship team competing it really did become a showcase for the exciting new talent we have in GB, as well as a few returning Olympians proving they are coming back to form. This can only be a positive thing going into the Olympic qualification year. Now at the Club we shift our focus back on to the crew boats again in the run up to the Fours Head of the River.”
We would like to thank Boston Rowing Cub as always for being so accommodating and all their volunteers for all their hard work, we are very grateful to you all.
