It was another successful weekend for our women’s squad racing at Metropolitan Regatta at Dorney Lake to finish off our camp training block.
Saturday brought the return of the characteristic Dorney cross wind, adding another level of excitement to racing.
An early time trial for our two women’s eights secured them places in the A final lining up alongside a field of top university and club crews from across the country starting their summer racing campaigns.
This was shortly followed by Katie Birch racing in the single and two women’s quads all securing A final places.
The first final of the day was the women’s eights and after just a 0.4 second separation for the top 4 eights in the time trial, it was ready for a good showdown. Our first eight stepped out to an early lead and extended this to just over a length of open water to take home the Chairman’s Trophy. It is the first time a women’s crew has taken this trophy home after a review of the distribution by the Met Regatta committee. Our second eight had a great race and placed 4th in a tightly packed field.
Our quads had a great matched race staying within about 1/4 a length of each other the whole way down the course finishing 2nd and 3rd to a well drilled Wycliffe College crew.
Katie raced a great finish and a sprint to the line gave her a 4th place finish.
The afternoon racing brought out two womens fours winning both the Championship and club 4- events. Our junior men’s squad raced in a quad and single finishing 4th and second in the B finals respectively.
Sunday brought a flat race course and blue skies for a Star and Arrow quad and 2 fours racing again. The Star and Arrow quad had a great racing progression gaining experience and momentum throughout finishing 3rd in the final. Two different fours took to the water on Sunday to place 4th and 6th in the final. A solid way to cap off the weekend.
This finished off our camp training block as we head into final preparation for Henley Women’s and HRR, as well as Marlow Regatta for our men’s squad.
