Henley Women's Regatta 2012

This weekend held the final Rowing World Cup of 2012, in Munich.  The A finals were shown on the BBC on Sunday and once again the GB team put in a solid performance at the regatta. The last big show down before the Olympics!  I was so chuffed for the women's pair who put in a stellar performance and comfortably beat New Zealand, last years World Champions. Also the women's eight had a fab last 500m to clinch the bronze medal.




















The team have all been collecting their Olympic kit up in Loughborough over the past couple days. Rumour is they have around 70kgs of kit!

Ex housemate, friend and stroke of the GB women's 8+ Victoria Thornley (above right) has been very organised and despite only collecting it today; already unpacked and named all her kit (above left)!

Henley Women's Regatta 2012

So whilst the big shots were racing the world's best in Munich, back at home the remainder of the Leander girls were racing on home turf at Henley Women's Regatta.  Hats off to the regatta organisers for keeping the regatta running so smoothly.  Conditions were tricky due to the heavy rain in the run up to the regatta which caused a very fast stream.  The race course runs against the stream, and with a very strong headwind to contend with as well there was no chance for record times this year!

Despite this everybody battled through the conditions as best they could and it was a successful weekend, cementing the regatta's 25th anniversary.

I raced the elite quad and elite double.  The double was the last chance we had to race another double side by side before the European Championships in September (pending selection) and the quad was the first run out for a combination we will row in for Henley Royal Regatta next week.  Our quad line up is Tina and me, and Rachel Gamble-Flint and Sarah Cowburn who raced a double at the U23 World Rowing Championships last year. 



This is a shot early on in the race of our Leander quad, on the right in the white boat, racing Vesper USA

Because of how the draw worked out, Tina and I had four races on Sunday! Henley Women's Regatta (HWR) is only a 1500m course, considerably shorter than our usual 2km race length.  However, rowing against a very fast stream and strong headwind meant that the times were closer to times we would expect from racing 2k, and on Saturday when the wind was at its strongest, much slower than normal 2k times! Our legs were very tired by the time we got to the last race, the doubles final.

Our semi finals were not too taxing in either boat, although we had poor starts in both of them and had a little ground to make up.  Our finals were both harder races although we still won by healthy margins; 1 1/3 lengths in the 4x and 3 2/3 of a length in the 2x.  It was great to assert our dominance in this regatta, and racing in the Elite category we met international crews in both events.

The women's four, made up of half Leander, half Imperial also won their event, Elite coxless fours.




Leander Ladies having fun with the silverware.  Leander's Henley Women's Regatta winners in the Elite categories From L-R: Rachel Gamble-Flint (4x), Monica Relph (4-), Tina Stiller (2x,4x) Erica Bodman (2x,4x), Sarah Cowburn (4x), Victoria Meyer-Laker (4-)

Sir Steve Redgrave was there for the prizegiving...

And this is a shot of our double winning the final against Rowing Ireland.  We are on the left. Photo taken from the umpires launch...

Now we will be concentrating on the quad for the next 10 days to get us up to speed for the big event: Henley Royal Regatta!  This is a massive event in the social and rowing calendar, and a great opportunity for us in Olympic year to have a shot at winning whilst the Olympic crews are away preparing for the 2012 Games.



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Some more photos from the regatta:

Waiting to be checked by a marshall before the semi final of 4x

Racing the final of the 4x



Paddling to the start of the semi final, thank you to Buff and Headsweats!

Off the start of the 2x Final



Happy winners of Elite quad. L-R Tina Stiller, Erica Bodman, Rachel Gamble-Flint, Sarah Cowburn