Evesham’s golden duo

Posted on May 17, 2006 | Filed under Rowing

Five Evesham boys’ crews took medals at last Sunday’s Junior Inter-regional Championships. Eight boys crews and three girls crews from the club were selected to represent the West Midlands at this event, held at the National Watersports Centre in Nottingham.

Top of the medal positions were Rory Sullivan and Oli Staite who collected gold after treating the crowd to a thrilling Grand Final for the Junior 15 double sculls. After scraping through to the final race by the skin of their teeth the Evesham boys gave the crowd nothing to shout about in the first half of the 1,500 metre race. With 500 metres to go, and two boat lengths behind the leaders - a double from Maidenhead Boat Club, Sullivan and Staite put on a mammoth push. They surged forwards and brought their boat level with the leaders and crossed the finishing line just in front. The result was confirmed by a photo-finish - Evesham had won by 0.15 seconds, about a foot.

The achievement was all the more impressive because half an hour before the doubles final Staite had competed in the Grand Final of the J15 single sculls - and won silver. Staite had had his eye on the top singles spot after a hard winter of training. He was content with silver having faced an impressive opponent in the form of the current J15 British Indoor Rowing Champion who won gold.

Sullivan also picked up a bronze medal after teaming up with Will Tew, Josh Pendry and James Crumpton (coxed by Dan Barnes) to row in the J15 coxed quad event. Once again the final was hotly contested, with their old adversaries from Windsor Boys’ School in the finals line up. Regular readers may recall that the Evesham coxed quad was beaten into second place on the finish line at last year’s National Championships by Windsor Boys. Despite their best efforts Evesham was not going to be in the running for gold at this event. There was a very close race for second, with a crew from Warrington, Cheshire, crossing the line just a canvas (5 foot) ahead of the Evesham crew who had to be content with third place. To celebrate the moment Will Tew decided to revive the custom of doing a headstand in the boat - which he accomplished with aplomb, before collecting his well-earned medal.

Tew’s bronze was his second of the day. Earlier, he had teamed up with Tom Walker to row in the J16 doubles event. Once again the final promised to be a close race with little between the leaders. But the Evesham boys suffered a technical hitch towards the end of the race and came in third.

At J14 level the coxed quad of Tom Noble, Rob Barnett, Ben Farrar and Jon Farrar (coxed by Jack Lazenby) put their all into a final that included some very strong competition from northern clubs, and came home with bronze medals. The boys had nearly missed out on medals at all as one of them had fallen off his seat during the race - twice.

For the girls, the J14 double of Chloe Bryan and Colleen Penrose made the grand final of their event but were just pipped into fourth place. There was disappointment for single scullers Abi Penrose and Ruth Whyman. Fifteen-year-old Penrose, who was rowing at J16 level, qualified for the Petit Final (for those crews that didn’t qualify for the Grand Final) but found the going tough against the older competitors. Whyman, rowing at J14, qualified for the Grand Final but missed out on the medal positions.

Evesham Rowing Club was also heavily represented at Shrewsbury Regatta over the weekend. Several crews made finals but it was not until the end of the second day of racing that Evesham had its two wins. While his brother was collecting gold in Nottingham, J13 Lawrence Sullivan was winning his first Regatta in a double with Cameron Brodie. The boys beat strong crews from Ross and Worcester Rowing Clubs to claim their well-deserved pewter tankards. For the seniors Jane McIntosh and Victoria Seymour won several heats of the senior 4 doubles event before meeting Warwick Boat Club in the final. The women made it look easy coming in three lengths ahead of their rivals.

Evesham Rowing Club’s next outings will be the National Schools Regatta and Hereford City Regatta both held over the bank holiday weekend.

Comments are closed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 11:32 am and is filed under Rowing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.