Womens Junior 14 Quadruple Coxed Sculls. The crew of Sophie Morgan, Annabel Stevens, Poppy Catchpole, Rose Pople and Henry Cruickshank (Cox) got through to the final but were not able to gain a medal (they broke a shoe in the boat just after they started which slowed them down.

Womens Junior 17 Single Sculls. Rosie Morgan won this event and got her first single Scull Gold Medal. It was her first ever single scull race.

Junior 17 Single Sculls. Seb Hudson entered this event, this was his first ever single scull race and although he did not qualify for the final he learnt a lot and will be able to use that experience later in the season.

Junior 16 Quadruple Coxless Sculls. The crew of Seb Hudson, Elliot Salmon, Nick Ward and Kaelan Fouwels. They suffered a disappointing start and were unable to make up the distance during the race and finished outside the medals.

The Junior Coach Holly Airbright was very proud of all the entrants saying that they all learnt something from the day to use in future events. Holly was able to help her previous club Hereford Rowing Club by lending them the Reading Cox Henry Cruickshank to their First Four to compete in the final of the Ball Cup itself. Henry was able to cox them to second place and gained a silver medal for this amazing effort.

With Saturday’s blustery and chilly conditions and some rather rusty rowing (following a week of crazy stream flows at Reading), the majority of the women’s squad were understandably slightly apprehensive competing on the Olympic course the following day. Nervously stepping out of the car on Sunday morning, we were pleasantly surprised to find it calmer and warmer than the day before – fate was smiling upon us!

First up was the IM2.4+, ably coxed by Ingrid Semanikova and consisting of Claire Dickinson, Caroline Withers, Eimear Connery and Nicky Kay. Shooting out of the starting block at a rate of 41, they kept this momentum up for the first 30 strokes, finally settling at an average rate of 35 strokes per minute, steaming down the course. The crew fought admirably against Thames and Royal Grammar School for the majority of the course and held off the school crew to come 5 th in the heat. A gutsy performance by the rowing crew and credit to Ingrid for superbly coxing her first race!

Bella Sale and Keeley Thorne were the second women’s race of the day racing in the WJ18 2x category. Boating in lane 5 proved a little disappointing for the screaming crowd at the 1750m mark but the ladies glided past looking beautiful as they finished the last 250m.

Third race of the day was Sarah Payne and Sally Pollok-Morris racing in the WIM1 2x category and showed no mercy from the outset. Three seconds up at the 500m, they never lost the lead from start to finish, cruising to victory in a fantastically quick time of 8:13. They were followed in the next heat by the other WIM1 2x crew, Susie Wilkinson and Sarah Harvey who felt the full force of the Reading cheers in lane 1. Third place up to the 1500m mark, they missed out on the final by a mere 3 seconds – great row ladies!

Fifth women’s race of the day was the WIM2 8+, which saw Shippy dragged into the cox’s seat and Ingrid roped into to rowing following a deathly white Ros turning up to the regatta. Coxed by Paul Shipman, the rowers were Claire Dickenson, Caroline Withers, Eimear Connery, Ingrid Semanikova, Deirdre Prentice, Nicky Kay, Jo McSweeney and Catherine Roberts and stormed down the course fighting the Oxford and Caius crews down the whole race and finishing 4th out of the 5 crews.

The last women’s race of the day was the WIM1 2x final where Sarah Payne and Sally Pollok-Morris enjoyed some great racing. Making a superb start, they went on to hold the lead in the final until the last 300m as top MAA W2x made an epic push and there was fight for the line – bow ball to bow ball – in the final surge across the line, it was MAA who took the honours in the ‘Chairman’s Challenge Vase’ by 0.06 seconds. A truly spectacular finish and a nail-biting conclusion that could easily have gone the other way!

The Men’s Intermediate 2 Eight (IM2.8+), of Jack Casserley, Harry Mayne, Rob Clay, Phil Mallinson, Finbarr Bevan, Dan Brown, Mike Godfrey and Ryan Seager and coxed by Pete Campbell narrowly missed out on getting through to the repechage by coming third in their heat, losing out to Pembrock College and the event winners Shewbury School.

The Men’s Intermediate 3 Coxed Four (IM3.4+) of Ross Davenport, Adam Davies, Gareth Bower and James Batchor coxed by Alex Darke came 5th in a tough heat.

The Men’s Intermediate 3 Eight (IM3.8+) with special guest stroke club captain Mike Linehan subbing in at the last minute, included Kareem Mahmoud Sharawi, Simon Markham, Chris Albin, James Howlett, Paul Robinson, Simon Griffiths and Simon Fletcher coxed by Marie Hoadley had a good race even though it was the first ever race for two of the crew.

The regatta season has started, some excellent racing demonstrated by all so watch this space!

Race report by Jo McSweeney

Junior Ed Shorland convincingly won the J14 single sculling event with a time of 9mins 37s coming in well ahead of the rest of the 17 strong field by 26 seconds

Reading RC Masters squad entered 6 crews. Three coxed fours were entered into Division 1, the Masters D (average age 50-55) achieved a time of 08:49 minutes to finish second in their category whereas in the Masters F (average age 60-65) the crew coxed by coach Tony Pigot was fastest in the category in a time of 09:28 minutes and the crew coxed by John Edmeades were third in a time of 09:49 minutes.

In Division 2 Reading had two coxed fours (category E – average age 55-60 and category G average age 65-70) and a coxless D four. The coxless four had no competition as few coxless sweep crews attempt the course due to the tight S bend. Reading’s top crew however accepted the challenge and despite interference around the bend from slower crews manged an impressive time of 8:41 minutes to finish in the top 30 overall. The world champion category G coxed four finished in a fantastic 09:39 minutes, and over a minute ahead of their rival G crew. The E crew suffered from congestion at the bend and incurred a penalty to finish in 11:15 minutes, a disappointing result for Bruce Reid who had his last day racing with Reading RC after 9 years before his return to Sydney. However he was rewarded with a better row in Division 3 where he was in the Reading G eight which completed the course in 09:05 minutes to finish second fastest in the category. The category D eight finished an impressive second in a time of 8:24 minutes.

Reading RC’s women’s squad was represented in a composite WC4x with Leicester to bring home yet another win at Abingdon. Sally P-M and Sarah Payne (new RRC recruit) joined forces with a Leicester duo to seize victory in a superb time of 08:37 minutes, coming in 28 seconds faster than the closest opposition.

The junior squad put in seven entries to the BIRC over a range of events and age categories. Annabelle Stevens and Sophie Morgan came 7th and 10th respectively in the women’s J14 event covering over 975m in the 4 minute allocated time. Zoe Taylor came an impressive 6th out of 18 competitors in the 5 minute women’s J15 sprint. The rest completed a full 2k erg race, with Sam Geller storming to 8th in the J16 event, Niko Ciecierski-Holmes to an outstanding 4th at J17 level and Matt Denley to 6th in the J18 event. Rosie Morgan represented the junior women J18s rowing to an impressive 6th.

Lisa Kunkel represented the Reading RC women’s squad with a fantastic race in the women’s open event. Lisa made a strong performance coming in 5th.

Even the Reading RC coaches weren’t left on the side lines to cheer this weekend, with Holly Airbright showing her junior squad students her skills coming 6th in the women’s student event. A solid effort all round from Reading RC, well done!

Full results can be found at http://concept2.co.uk/birc/results

Zoe Taylor, Cece Mowczan, Lauren Kedar and Charley Higgs sculled to an impressive Silver Medal in the WJ17 4x- event. The crew sculled very proficiently covering the course in 21:08.0 minutes, only just losing out by five seconds to a very fast combination from Walton Rowing Club.

Especially impressive is Zoe and Charley who would normally compete in WJ15, and were able to hold their own, competing in this event against tough older opposition. This is a very encouraging result as the Junior Squad looks ahead expectantly to a packed regatta racing calendar with hopefully many more medals to come.

Race report by Pete Wagner

Reading RC entered three boats in this year’s Vesta Veterans Head of the River Race the 30th time this event has been held on the “Championship Course” on Sunday 18th March. This is rowed from Mortlake to Putney on the falling tide (i.e. the reverse of the Boat Race course). It is the culmination of the winter training programme, the longest and last of the winter heads or processional races which are in effect time trials. Some 235 crews entered this year’s race, with the Reading crews starting at 129 (Masters E stroked by Chris Lacy), 138 (Masters E stroked by Christian Wagner) and 158 (Masters G stroked by Richard Hulme). Crews boated in warm sunny weather but as ever the Tideway reminded us how quickly conditions can change and the hail stones came down soon after the E category started and whilst the “oldies” in the G boat were waiting for their start. Crew 129 were unfortunately swiftly overtaken by crew 130, Ardingly but they manged to hang on to them for the remainder of the race despite being impeded by an Italian crew which almost came to a halt under Barnes Bridge when they felt the headwind. Shelley Montague, cox, extricated the boat from the near collision and blade clash then steered an excellent course which was otherwise unobstructed. The Italians being left many lengths behind. John Edmeades had less difficulties steering crew 138 who successfully overtook three other crews but were unfortunately overhauled by three others including Crabtree with whom they had a good tussle until gear failure slowed them down. Finally, Paul Shipman had a very swift ride in the G boat which overhauled no less than 5 other crews to finish 1st in the G category and 3rd in the combined G/H class and 11th overall. The G crew were well pleased with the row, although the speed through the water did fall off, perhaps a little more than it should have done whilst rowing against the wind. What all members of the G crew enjoyed most was the side by side performance of the crew against the carefully selected composite crew based at Henley, with Tim Lincoln at stroke and Arnie Cooke at 7. This boat contained two former Olympic oarsmen; the number 6 rowed for West Germany, and number 7 sculled for GB. Reading after all are the top club G eight!

Sally Pollok-Morris representing Reading in composite crew of Reading/Barnes Bridge Ladies/Wycliffe Sculling School won the overall fastest women by 9 secs (on Handicap) – without the time adjustment they still came in a very respectable 3rd place behind Vesta A (by 23 secs) and Thames (14 secs). Winning C category by some 53 Seconds. Also Beating quality crews from 1927 Boat Club / Sport Imperial BC, Vesta B and Wallingford RC who were the fastest Womens Masters 8 from WeHORR.

Report by Peter Waite and Sally Pollok-Morris
Photo courtesy of imperialphotos.co.uk © Pierre Thomas. All rights reserved.

Reading Rowing Club’s men had a good result in the 2012 Head of the River Race on Saturday. Over 3000 men in 404 crews descended on the Thames between Chiswick and Putney for the four and a quarter mile course. Conditions were typically wet with rain and cold hitting crews during pre-race marshalling, but brightening up just in time for racing. Reading had two crews take part in this year’s iconic race.

The Reading I crew of Mike Joyce, Bruce Simpson, Adam Davies, Rob Clay, Peter Charij, Phil Mallison, Mike Godfrey, Louis Casserley, coxed by Pete Campbell finished in 160th with a time of 19:44.57.

The Reading II crew of Finbarr Brevan, Simon Fletcher, Jack Casserley, Dan Brown, Ross Davenport, Simon Tapley, Ryan Seager, James Batchelor coxed by Alex Darke finished 151st with a time of 19:42.17.

RRC Women’s Squad’s Julia Francis and Sally Pollok-Morris joined forces with Barnes Bridge Ladies, Strathclyde Park RC, Wycliffe Sculling Centre and Upper Thames to race at the popular Heineken Roieverkamp last weekend. Racing took place over two days on the lower reaches of the Amstel River in Amsterdamm Netherlands.

The event consists of a 2500m time trial and a 250m match race on the Saturday, followed by 750m and 5000m on the Sunday (although veterans are excused the 750m). Each time is reduced to a 250m split time and the results of the races added together to give an overall score

Crews raced the 2500m then immediately lined up to sprint a 250m against the closest opposition. The sprints were great fun and made for good spectating (especially as the finish is surrounded by pubs). Once racing is over for the day the crews find out how much time they have to make up or hold onto to retain or improve the winning order.. Unfortunately for the girls, they knew it would take a small miracle to overhaul their opposition Willam III (apparently full of ex Dutch Squad) by 40seconds to have a chance of first place.

The 5k on Sunday was raced into a strong head wind which finished them off however they managed to hold on to a respectable 2nd out of 9 place in Masters C and 4th out of 24 in Womens Masters crew overall. For full results go to : http://h4k.nereus.nl/results/ (Division 036/DVC8+ Barnes Bridge)

This is a great event run by Nereus and great city for a weekend on tour!! – Maybe we can get a bigger RRC contingent going next year!

Race report by Sally Pollok-Morris