Press Officer Team Kimberley reports on the U23 World Championships in Amsterdam. For those who don't speak Kimberley, a glossary is provide at the bottom.

For those unaware, the under-23 world championships are the culmination of the rowing season for the country’s top athletes who are aged 22 or younger in the year of competition. Selection takes place after a series of several gruelling trials, followed by even more gruelling seat racing following. Five Imperial athletes were selected - Jamie Kirkwood [as if you hadn’t guessed already!] in the lightweight coxless four, Henry Goodier in the coxed four, Lottie Howard-Merrill in the women’s 8 and Josh Butler and Wilf Kimberley both in the lightweight quad, with the man himself, IC boss Don McLachlan, coaching. The event this year took place in Amsterdam.

Kirkwood’s four, consisting of northern marra Will Fletcher (Durham University BC) as well as Leander batty boys John Clegg and John Preston, had only one change to last year’s world-beating line up. The week, however, did not go quite as planned as the crew finished second in the heat being beaten by a determined Italian crew, despite being quickest out of the blocks. Bad luck of the draw meant the crew was placed in a semi-final of lethal pace where the four ended up 4th. The race reflected the standard of the event – had they been a mere 0.66 seconds quicker, they would have won the race. Gutting as this was, the four then had the consolation of setting a world best time from the B-final of 05:58.44 the next day finishing 7th overall. 

The coxed four fared better. Their road to the world championships started with an IC moral victory as Henry G was selected for the boat over UL’s Alex Torbica. Alongside Henry were Phil Congdon (Durham University BC), James Scott (University of California, Berkeley BC; a member of the crew who won the temple this year, daring to knock Team Kimberley out in the process – Team Kimberley is now determined to parr him like a parsnip at some point in the future), former partner of Simon Steele, Ertan Hazine (ULBC) and coxed by Franz Imfield (Durham University BC). As the day of the four’s heat unfolded, three of the four were raring to go, but the big two-man Congdon was suffering from extreme nerves, supposedly related to the rare but more ICBC-familiar condition known as JYS (extreme mental weakness). The crew came third in their heat and were forced to qualify for their final through the repechage. They recovered brilliantly from this to pull out a cracking race the next day, winning the repechage by the best part of a comfortable two seconds. In the final, the crew looked strong and were in second place coming in to the last 500 metres. However, all the three crews immediately behind them (Germany, France and New Zealand) were all in a tight battle between themselves. Team Kimberley can only describe these three crews as going ‘schitz breh’ for the last 500m, causing the British crew to end up in a very respectable 5th place in 6:11.16

The lightweight quad’s campaign also didn’t start to plan, coming 4th in the heat. A noteable performance was put in by the Serbian crew who having been fastest to the 1000 metre mark, finished around 30 seconds behind the GB crew. The repechage saw improvement, however the GB crew still didn’t quite finish where they had planned, coming in 2nd behind the home crew from the Netherlands. Rumour has it a 50 foot mushroom cloud was seen from Team Kimberley’s seat somewhere around the 750m to go marker. In spite of a good race in the semi, the quad still didn’t quite show the speed they had had in training and ended up 4th in the semi. Going in to the final, the crew was determined to win and did so, beating the Irish by 0.07 seconds in 5:55.87, putting them in 7th place overall. Team Kimberley gives a big respec’ to Josh Butler for being nearly comatose after the race, showing that he had pulled bare hard.

Last but not least was IC’s female representative, Lottie Howard-Merrill, in the women’s 8. In spite of having only six entries, the crew was made to do an exhibition race where the girls were clearly just chillin’ and finished 6th. The girls were only able to manage 5th in the final but Team Kimberley can testify that having watched the presentation ceremony for the event that he would have been the smallest member of any of the top three women’s 8s by some way [Team Kimberley is not actually that small even if he is a lightweight].

In spite of some disappointing results for some, it was a good and enjoyable experience for all. Team Kimberley will attempt to return next year and looks forward for some inspiration from IC’s contingent at the Senior World Championships in Bled, Slovenia in September with Adam Freeman-Pask in the lightweight single, Hester Goodsell in the lightweight double, Andrea Dennis in the lightweight quad and Mel Wilson in the heavyweight quad. We wish them all the best of luck.

Team Kimberley’s badman glossary:

Bare: A pronoun that can be used to replace any term for exaggeration such as much, many, several, etc.

Parred like a parsnip: A phrase used to describe beating someone/something else.

Going schitz breh: Going crazy but in a very extreme manner