News

Wallingford won both the Junior and the overall Victor Ludorum at this weekend’s British Rowing Championships, the first time in the club’s history, and a reflection of the amazing progress under Directors of Junior Rowing Katie Greves and Andy Green.

Our Juniors won no fewer than 6 medals including gold in WJ18 8+ and WJ16 4x, with many A and B final places too throughout our age groups. In the photo they are joined by Rachael Haycock, long-time cox at the club and Wallingford Regatta committee member extraordinaire, who volunteered for all 4 days at the Championships.

Without people like Rachael, rowing in this country could not exist – thank you!

Five of our WJ16s were selected for the WJ16 4+ at this year’s GB-France match, their first taste of an international regatta, and the first GB vests at the club for a number of years. The match took place at a new venue, Lery-Poses en Normandie, where there was some excellent tight racing and verdicts of less than half a second. Our girls won convincingly, helping the GB team to come home with all three trophies (boys, girls and overall.) Well done Lily, Florence, Lucy, Naomi and cox Alice.

At the recent Henley Masters Regatta we had no fewer than 6 wins, including Sean in his MasJ 1x. He is seen here holding the certificate he was also given for racing in the year of his 80^th birthday! An incredible achievement, one we would all like to emulate.

There were also wins for our Treasurer Andy in MasD 1x, Anne racing one category down in WMasF 1x, our WMas F4+ (with verdicts in two races of half a length or more) and several of our members in two composite 8+, racing as WMas E and F, including a hard-fought ding-dong with our club 8+ with a verdict of a canvas.

The 4+ from Wallingford Schools BC (formerly a separate club rowing out of Wallingford RC, now disbanded) who won the Britannia Challenge Cup in 1974 successfully carried out their 50th anniversary row-past at the Sunday lunch interval at Henley Royal Regatta this weekend.

They proudly wore the bright yellow and blue kit not seen on these waters for over 40 years. Well done to John, Simon, Bill and Roger plus cox Tim and coach Bruce who cheered on from the bank, plus Alice, one of our WJ15s, who kindly coxed for them as Tim is now too tall to fit the hot seat!

The club has just purchased a brand new Filippi carbon-wing 8+, thanks to multiple fundraising efforts, donations and grants. It will be racing down the Henley Royal Regatta course on Tuesday 2^nd July.

We have named it “Tim Brock” in honour of one of our most cherished members – former Club Captain, current committee member, safety officer, volunteer coach and much more. Here is Tim with the girls of our Prince Philip Challenge Cup crew in the Henley tents.

Many congratulations to our J16 girls for being selected to represent GB in a 4+ at the forthcoming GB-France match in Lery-Poses en Normandie, France on 13^th July. We hope this is a start of a flow of athletes enjoying international success from our club!

The club won a superb 9 events in Reading this weekend, from first-ever wins for our J14 B crew boys and Lily Q in a J15 4x+, to a pre-Henley win for our WJ18 8+ and J18 4x, to our Masters D 4x who won their semi-final by all of 2 feet. 

Our outstanding Masters squad brought home 8 medals (6 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze) from this year’s Championships in Nottingham, across all boat types from 1x, 2x, 4-, 4x and 8+. Of particular note was 4 wins for Janet Mehers and 3 wins and a silver for Anne Grainger. An inspiring squad!

Our youngest members went to this regatta on 8^th June for more side-by-side racing experience, and came away with bucket loads! They had lots of fun, two of them even racing 7 times in one day, including a capsize. The win therefore for our WJ14 2x of Jemma and Aurelia at the end of a long, hard day was all the more precious.

Some fantastic teamwork, boys lending kit, carrying boats, cheering on the girls – all in all a superb day.

A record club entry, a record number of “B” (3) and “A” finalists (8) and a record number of medals (5) made this a hugely successful weekend for Wallingford, showing how far our Junior programme has come in the three years since Katie Greves and Andy Green took charge. Everyone upped their game, with huge surprises such as our J14 4x+ and J18 2-making their A finals, and even some relative disappointments as gold medals were missed in extremely tight races. Our medallists were:

Silver: Championship Girls 4+ Elin, Tabby, Hannah, Annie cox Orla

Silver: Girls J16 8+ Hollie, Daisy, Lucy, Phoebe, Jessie, Naomi, Florence, Lily cox Alice

Bronze: Open J15 4+ Seth C, Fred, Lewis, Tom D cox Seth B

Bronze: Open J15 4x+ Sean, Freddie, Arthur, Tom F cox Seth B

Bronze: Open 2^nd J15 4x+ Stan, James, Will, Eddie cox Zac

Thanks also to Lee and Susan for organising our best marquee ever, serving cream teas and Pimms right on the 1000m mark!