Czechoslovakia July 23rd-26th: IC’s Henry Fieldman has won a bronze medal at the U23 World Rowing Championships coxing the GB 8+ in Czecholslovakia. Fieldman is a Natural Sciences undergraduate at Imperial and has been an integral part of the GB U23 team his year. He has coxed on the GB squad at GB Rowing HQ in Caversham, at international regattas and at Henley Royal Regatta, while still fulfilling domestic duties by coxing for Imperial at BUCS, the Eight’s Head and Henley Royal. Fieldman was firmly placed as favourite to cox the 8+ at the U23 World Championships.

The crew (Kieren Emery, Chris Abraham, Nathaniel Reilly-O'Donnell, Tom Clark, Ben Duggan, Dan Ritchie, Anthony Locke, Matt Rossiter and cox Henry Fieldman) had a good opening race in the heats to finish second in a time of 5:49.53 behind Canada who clocked 5:47.45. Both crews qualified directly to the final which would be two days later. Coach Steve Trapmore was on a GB training camp with Adam Freeman-Pask in preparation for the World Championships and so text message analysis of Henry's race ensued to see where extra pace could be found. The crew had not rowed together in the correct pattern making it hard to exert power and generate flow. Two days of intense technical sessions interspersed with power application work was tackled with serious focus.

On finals day the crew was on top form and Fieldman was pleased with the preparation: “The race went as much to plan as we could have hoped. We had a really sweet warm-up, doing some of the best rowing we had done as that crew. High rate bursts felt effortless and easy.” In the race itself the GB crew were leading the field after the first 15 strokes. They were soon caught by Estonia who sat in front for about 750 metres. The patient pace of the GB crew started to pay off and Estonia were reeled back in. GB led the world through the half way point.

Moving into the last 500m the Polish had moved in front of GB by a small margin and proceeded to increase this lead. With 250 metres to go the German’s made a push and snuck past the GB crew. “We tried our best to hold them off, but they were just too strong on the day.” With a last dash for the line Poland came away with gold, Germany silver and bronze for GB in a very tight finish. [1. Poland 5:32.77 | 2. Germany 5:34.11 | 3. Great Britain 5:35.25 | 4. Australia 5:36.37 |5. Canada 5:37.74 | 6. Estonia 5:40.98]

Fieldman was satisfied with the result: “The guys in my boat put up a great fight and did everything that I asked of them. It was an amazing experience. I enjoyed every second of racing in that crew. We had great support from friends and family, which was greatly appreciated by all.” Coach Steve Trapmore was also impressed by Fieldman’s achievements this year since joining Imperial at the beginning of the term: “It is a significant step for rowing at Imperial to be producing coxes that can compete at this level. We have an exciting young group of athletes rowing at Imperial which will be strengthened by a new intake in October. Henry will be with us next season and will be helping to develop our squad to achieve domestic and international success.”

Read The Fieldman Interview to learn more about the coxing hero.

Christina Duffy

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