Nat Champs 2014

I was slightly less overwhelmed this year by the national junior rowing championships as this is my second year bringing Tom. However the number of boats and young athletes is amazing.

There was a bit of gazebo envy - the bigger richer clubs have huge branded marquees with full on catering. We has a little green gazebo in a bag which we were fairly sure wasn't waterproof so I invested in a waterproof pop up one which saved the day when the torrential rain started in the afternoon. What it couldn't do though, was stem the stream of water that flowed through our gazebo down hill towards the course. The old green gazebo let through a fine mist which felt rather like a spa treatment...

The first morning was qualifiers, to decide which athletes go into finals or semi-finals. In Tom's J15 single sculls there were 40 boys and 5 finals each with 6 places, so 10 wouldn't even get another race.

Tom's aims were:

1. don't capsize
2. get into the top 30 who qualify for finals/semi-finals

and at the last minute he added - try and get a 'C' final….

In fact he (1) didn't capsize, (3) was in the top 30 and qualified for the A/B semi-final on Sunday morning - so achieved his goals and more.

Five of our crews got into A/B semi-finals, the other five having minor finals this afternoon.

The day ended with more torrential rain but we finished the evening with a rather nice meal all together at the Holiday Inn.