Author: wallingfordrowingwebsite

The club put on another great event on our home stretch of water for 400 crews from around the country. A big thank you to all the volunteers – the events committee, club members and parents – who helped make it so successful.

We had a number of winners: Andy Hull, our Treasurer, in OMasC 1x; the J15 4x+ over the 4000m long course; Steve Pearson and Mike Edge in OMasF 2x; our WJ15 4x+ over the 2500m short course (including Jessie Clayton who only started sculling in August); Eddie Mould and Stan Sharp in J15 2x (first ever win for Eddie!) 

Four of our scullers raced in the Vesta Scullers Head on the Tideway last Saturday. First raced in 1954, this is the UK’s largest race for 1x and attracted no fewer than 543 competitors this year.

Huge congratulations to all of our scullers for finishing in the top 3 in their categories: Mariann Novak in WLwt, Charles Parry in MasI and Andy Hull in MasLwt, and a special huge congratulations to Janet Mehers for winning WMasG. After several years of competing she has finally got the victory she wanted – it just goes to show what a tough race this is. An amazing achievement Janet!

Another superb outing for the whole club – Seniors, Masters and Juniors (and parents!) all mixing it up and having a great time together at one of our most local regattas. Highlights from the weekend included Fi Halliday enjoying her first racing – reaching the final of the W8+ no less – and Ruth Haigh making it four Oxford wins out of four this year (Isis Sculls, City Bumps, City Regatta and City Sprints.)

On Saturday we had wins for Ruth in a composite Mixed 2x and Daisy Coleman and Lucy Mead in WJ15 2x; on Sunday our winners were Sam Chard in O 1x , Ruth again in a composite Mixed 2x, Fred Hendy in his first ever win in a single at J15 1x, Ewan Sleep in in his last outing as a Junior in J18 1x, Lily Clayton also winning her first singles race in WJ15 1x.

That’s a wrap for summer racing, now to look forward to another season!

Another hugely successful outing for our Juniors to this popular regatta. I strongly suspect they like it so much because it is only 500m long… but they also award old-fashioned glass-bottomed tankards as prizes, which is becoming increasingly rare. The organisers nearly cancelled it in the face of Storm Antoni, and in the end we were lucky to have little wind, a couple of hours of rain, and racing suspended for only an hour due to thunder and lightning. There was some great racing and interesting steering.

Our Band 1 Mixed 2x of Emma Moroney and Ollie Absolom (Nikki’s son rowing with us over the summer) won the first prize of the day, their adult opponents capsizing dramatically 5 strokes from the finish, but our duo already 1.5 lengths ahead. Michael Bell (also rowing with us for just the summer) won his first ever pot, in J16 1x, quickly followed by his second in J16 2x with Jacob Gunn. His sister Naomi Bell, a full-time member of the Junior squad, won her second consecutive WJ15 1x title after her success at Henley T&V the previous weekend, as well as WJ15 2x with Lauren Fiddy.

Becca McIntyre won her first ever race in Wallingford colours, in Band 2 Mixed 2x with Ewan Sleep. Ewan also won J18 1x, and is undefeated in three years of racing as a Junior at Maidenhead! There were also wins for Emma in WJ18 1x, and Niamh McAdden and Annie Collins in WJ18 2x. Nine wins in total for Wallingford!

The club had a most successful visit to this regatta on 30^th July. We came within a hair’s breadth of winning the Victor Ludorum with our 10 wins, denied mostly because they were in smaller boats rather than the 8s you need to pick up the desired points. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic club showing, with wins ranging from members aged 15 to 60+: two wins from our Masters, four wins from our Seniors and four wins from our Juniors. Everyone cheered each other on, we shared boats and blades across three divisions and above all enjoyed some smooth commentary from our very own Roger Brown.

Winners were:

• MasF 4- Andy Knight, David Wright, Mike Drury, John Wiggins
• WMasE 2x Alice Brown, Jenny Taylor
• W 2- Band 2 Emma Butler, Sam Burrows (with best prize of the day, teddy bears in bags from sponsors Asquiths of Henley)
• W 4x Liberty Barlow, Ruth Haigh, Emma Butler, Sam Burrows
• W 2x Band 1 composite Sinead Turner (Nott Uni), Olivia White (lovely to see former WRC Juniors coming back to race for us in their summer holidays)
• Mixed 2x Chris Revell, Mariann Novak (committee member Chris doing the club management team proud)
• WJ16 1x Tabby Gauden
• WJ15 4x+ Lily Clayton, Phoebe Downs, Lucy Mead, Orlagh Markey cox Alice Hull (this was Orlagh’s first ever win!)
• WJ15 2x Phoebe Downs, Lucy Mead
• WJ15 1x Naomi Bell

The conditions were tough, a healthy cross headwind making the water lively, and numerous pleasure craft creating wash, but all our crews put in good performances with very exciting racing. Well done everyone for making this a great regatta.

Some of our intrepid Masters went to Munich to race in this year’s European Masters Championships. Despite storms causing the postponement and cancellation of some races, Wallingford athletes came home with wins in composite crews in WMasF and G 4+ (Janet Dutton) and in WMasC and E 8+ (Katie Kapernaros, Lou Wymer, Rachael Haycock), the latter having much loved former Wallingford members Heather Moon-Vogels and Jo Wilby on board too.

Many congratulations on winning those massive medals!

The last major event for our juniors was at Strathclyde Country Park in Scotland this weekend. We took a record number of crews (36) and achieved both a record number of finalists and a record number of medals! The conditions were very windy – a stiff headwind on Friday and Saturday, and a howling cross-tail on Sunday – but this venue is much fairer and more rowable than the usual Nottingham Holme Pierrepoint. Apart from cancelling the semi-finals on Sunday, all races were completed, and the promised torrential rain mostly held off. Our juniors produced some excellent races in challenging waves.

Our WJ16 4+ are now British Champions, adding to their win at Henley Women’s Regatta, although only Tabby Gauden was in both crews. Martha Hudson, Zara Richardson, Lily Clayton and cox Nell Peters proved what amazing strength in depth we have in this squad. Tabby and Zara also picked up a silver medal in a composite WJ16 4x with two girls from Sir William Perkins School, despite trying out another sport on their way to the start (swimming.)

Our exciting squad of J14 boys won bronze in an incredibly tense race adding to the bronze they won at National Schools Regatta. Arthur Liddy, Lewis Strange, Will Andrews, Tom Fanstone and cox Eddie Mould actually won their time trial only to find themselves downed by a canvas in the final. The B crew reached the B final, finishing 11^th – another squad with a great depth of talent. Altogether Wallingford had 9 finalists with no fewer than three of them coming 4th, just missing out on the medals.

Congratulations to all our Juniors for their hugely impressive performances.

Congratulations to our two Masters crews who brought home gold medals from this regatta!

The WMasB 2- of Sam Hammond and Emma Butler bookended their main season with a much deserved win over Exeter RC in the semi-final and a Scottish composite crew in the final, having won the WMasB 2- title at the Pairs Head way back in October. Our evergreen WMasF 4x of Rachel Edge, Jenny Taylor, Julia Wilks and Alice Brown continued their winning ways with victory over tough opposition from a composite Upper Thames/Lincoln Park crew in their final.

There were also wins for Wallingford ladies Katie Kapernaros, Lou Wymer and Rachael Haycock (and former members Jo Wilby and Heather Moon-Vogels) in composite crews in WMasE 8+ and 4-, and Alice Topley nee Freeman in a WMasC 8+ composite.

Our W4- of Ruth Haigh, Lucy Walker, Sam Hammond and Emma Butler did Wallingford RC proud at HRR. If you missed the YouTube coverage it is well worth looking for – they rowed brilliantly, looked super smart and there was some lovely commentary.

Having entered just to get a taste of the Henley experience in the qualifying races, our 4- discovered that the Stewards had decided to let all the crews race in the Town Challenge Trophy at the regatta proper! They had a fantastic race in the Town Challenge Cup but were ultimately outpowered by an Oxford Brookes crew on the Thursday.

Here they are pictured in the boat tents with coach Keith Settle. Hopefully this will inspire the women’s squad for next year.

Wallingford has offered free membership to refugees from war and conflict for the past 18 months. We’ve been proud to host two Ukrainian boys who have honed their rowing skills (and their English) as part of our J16 squad. Pictured here at stroke is Tymur Shatalov, with Toby Mould at bow, in their 2x at TVP Regatta where they came 2^nd amongst some very fast schoolboy crews. Our boys bring a lot of passion and humour to the club every day! We welcome enquiries from any refugee family living locally: wrccaptain@hotmail.co.uk