Ryde Rowing Club maintained their strong record of regional representation when 6 of their Junior squad were selected to represent the Wessex Region and compete in the National Junior Inter-Regional’s Regatta in Nottingham on Saturday (21st April).
The championships are contested between the 11 British Rowing Regions, with the Thames region split into 2 – Thames Upriver and Thames London – to make 12 teams in total.
All events are raced over 1500-meters with the heats timed and the fastest 6 crews going through to the Grande or ‘A’ finale, with the others into the Petite or ‘B’ Final. A points system is applied, determined by the results, to establish which region are the national champions. The standard of racing is very high with a number of Junior Internationals and crews from the top public schools competing.
The Ryde athletes and support team travelled to Nottingham late on Friday afternoon before gathering at the National Water Sports Centre on Saturday morning.
5 of the selected club Juniors – Tom Starkey, Tye Cameron, Ben Sanderson, Austin Smith with Danny Sanderson coxing – provided the region’s Boys J16 Coxed Four and Freya Drage was selected as part of the Girls composite J16 Eight – a boat type she had never raced in before.
The Four and Freya in the Eight all competed above expectations. The Four finished their first race in a time of 5m 55s to finish in 4th place and just miss out on a place in the ‘A’ Final. In the ‘B’ Final they improved on their time by 2 seconds – finishing in 3rd place and 9th overall.
The Wessex J16 Eight – with Freya racing in the ‘engine room’ at 3 – finished their first race in 6th place race in a time of 6m 4s – also missing out on a place in the ‘A’ Final. They finished in 4th place in the ‘B’ Final, meaning 10th overall with a time of 6m 14s.
These performances helped the Wessex Region achieve a point’s total of 93 for the event.
