Battling for Bronze

We were all rather grumpy about having to go up to the National Watersports Centre in Nottingham for Junior Inter-Regionals. The J16 boys quad had failed to win the trials having had a very ill Will in the boat - so they were out of their favourite event. Then the coach agreed to them doing a composite eight with Henley J15 boys - and this just two weeks before GCSEs start!  Composite boats, with rowers who have never met and trained together don't usually do well and the Henley boys were a year younger and doubling up on another event. They'd be racing school eights that had trained together for weeks and months. The odds were against us. Race goal = not to come last.

They had one training session together in a boat which Tom described as 'a disaster', but we duly set off at 8.30am to do our bit. They had a difficult cross headwind for their first race but miraculously just managed to qualify for the A final. Nick changed their race plan as conditions developed during the afternoon, and our aim was to place 5th and get 7 points for our region.

The J16 boys eight is the last race of the competition, the grand finale. The race is 2k and at the 1500m mark they were in 5th place. At 500m Tom did what you are not supposed to do and looked round to see that they were catching up the 4th and 3rd placed boats and shouted 'come on, we can medal this'. Joel at stroke geared up the pressure and they fought the two other crews for the last 200m. The commentator called everyone to the bank to watch the battle he described as 'what this race is all about' and the boys nudged their boat over the line just a couple of feet ahead of their rivals, to take the bronze. 

Finally we got some big smiles and they got their medals which, along with junior girls Caitlin and Elise, meant every rower we took to Nottingham came home with a medal and Caitlin got two having won silver in her single and bronze with Elise in a double earlier in the day. On top of this, Thames Upriver region won boys and girls competitions and Victor Ludorum so they got to celebrate with the other clubs in our region as they were awarded the cup.

We didn't get home until 9.30pm though - a long long day and Tom will be out again racing at 7.30am.....swiftly followed by revision.