Double Gold for Evesham

Posted on July 25, 2007 | Filed under Rowing

Evesham’s junior rowers landed double gold at the British Rowing Championships - while their clubhouse was submerged by flooding.

There may have been a sinking feeling back home in Worcestershire, but just days after representing GB U16s against France, the Avon rowers were surfing a wave of success at Nottingham’s National Watersports Centre, winning the quadruple sculls and coxed fours.

Royal Grammar School Worcester’s Zoe Thompson took a superb silver in the girls’ U16 singles, while there was bronze joy for her club’s U18 boys’ four, King’s Worcester’s U16 girls’ four and Evesham RC’s U14 singler Yasmin Tredell.

Fresh from taking on France for GB in the Anglo-French U16 match on the same Nottingham course six days earlier, Evesham RC’s nine junior caps were not about to let their number one British rankings slip.

Quadruple scullers Oliver Staite, Danny Middleton, Will Tew and Rory Sullivan beat France by a length on the Holme Pierrepoint course, and the crew coached by Staite’s world medallist father Neil were in similar form.

Blasting off the blocks in their U16 final, they went through 500m feet up on Marlow outfit Sir William Borlase and then powered away to lead by nearly two lengths at half-way, coming home three lengths clear of their nearest rivals with Bedford outfit Star in bronze and Windsor Boys, Maidenhead and Marlow all nearly 20 seconds adrift.

Not to be outdone, clubmates Ben Farrar, Jon Farrar, James Crumpton, Josh Pendry and cox Jack Lazenby took gold in the U16 coxed fours.

They roared out to a length-and-a-half lead at 500m which they still held at half-way.

With the other four boats lengths behind, the Maidenhead/Maidstone composite then began to push back, but the Avon rowers would not be denied, hanging on to win by six feet in seven minutes 36.26 seconds.

Thompson led through 500m by six feet from Durham’s Helen Preston in her six-boat U16 final and was second by half-a-length from Canford’s Brianna Stubbs at half-way.

The headwind was making it tough going, but Thompson was two lengths clear of the Canford sculler with 500m to go.

She held the margin to the line with Durham taking gold two lengths up and the Nottingham, Norwich and Stourport scullers trailing.

Schoolmates Tom Gibson, Simon Goldrick, Chris Horner, Ben Kell and cox Barney Woodall overhauled Hampton in dramatic style to land bronze.

King’s U16 girls Lucy Boynett, Emma Robertson, Katherine Rollins, Annie Walden and cox Emma Hirons were third all the way in their final.

Story taken from Worcester News Internet Edition

Leave a reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Rowing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.