By Mr McEwen (Assistant Head Rowing Coach)
On Sunday 8th March, BGS Rowing Club attended the Eastern Region Junior Inter Regional Regatta (JIRR) Trials. This event was done in a 1km side by side, or regatta format, where the top four times from the heats in each category would race in a final. The winner of that final earns the right to represent the Eastern Region Rowing Team at JIRR in the summer.
At this time of year most of our training is focused on much longer time trial races such as the Schools Head of the River Race which has a course that is 6.5km. It can be difficult for athletes to shift their mindset from putting out a sustained effort over 20mins to a near flat out sprint of 4mins, but our crews handled this change extremely well and all produced strong performances.
We had seven crews entered from our J14-16 squads, racing against competitors from all of the clubs and schools in the region. For our J14 4x+ it was their first ever regatta, they won their heat in a close race with King’s Ely but unfortunately placed 5th on time, missing out on the final by 1 second. The J15 2x came 8th overall in a competitive field, only 20 seconds off of the winner. The J15 4x+ won their heat in a time that put them 3rd overall going into the final, where they maintained their placing while also improving their time showing good progression across the day. Having already prequalified the J16 4- our Year 11s raced in the J16 4x- where they had a strong start in the final, however their sculling inexperience showed in the last quarter of the race as they finished a close 4th.
Our J15 4+ raced incredibly maturely to secure a comfortable win in their final earning the right to represent the region. In the last race of the day our J16 2- showed great speed to win their final even with some slight difficulties steering. For those not familiar with rowing, a boat like this is steered by one of the rowers with a rudder wire attached to a moveable shoe, all while facing the wrong way and racing flat out. A very difficult skill to master.
We look forward to seeing our 3 qualified crews; J15 4+, J16 4-, and J16 2- don the magenta kit of the Eastern Region at JIRR on Saturday 25th April.
