Henley Women's Regatta

Aspirational Academic Coxless Four

With a confidence-boosting win at Reading Amateur Regatta under their belt, the academic W4- aspired to survive and thrive across the gruelling 3 days of HWR. A strong and relaxed time trial secured the crew’s passage into some spicy side by side racing. This kicked off on the afternoon of the first day, where the girls’ dominated a Scottish Uni’s composite crew from the drop of the flag to the line. With over 24 hours of intense recovery, Oxford Brooke’s was the next crew in line to be taken down on the road to the final. Soaring out of the blocks (and ever so slightly in Brooke’s’ station), the girls’ established their lead early on which they then built on down the course, allowing them to progress safely to the semi finals. This was to be the toughest race of the weekend. The girls had drawn a crew from Njord who were back fighting for their second shot at gold following an unfortunate encounter with the booms in the previous year. Despite a gutsy race in which our girls’ worked their way back from being a length down to half a length, the Dutch girls were able to just about cling on to their lead across the line. The crew from Njord then went on to win the competition. Though the semi final was the end of our HWR journey, the girl’s put down 4 solid performances which we are all extremely proud of and next year we will be back even stronger.

Bow: Philippa England

2: Naomi Doye

3: Georgiana Malin

Stroke: Daisy Bethell

by Pippa England

Aspirational Lightweight Single Scull

Gled Musollari's debut as a lightweight sculler began at Henley Women’s Regatta this year. The time trial put her 9th of the qualifiers, with less than a second between 9th and 5th place. For the first round, I’d drawn the 8th fastest qualifier – which was inevitably going to be a very close race. The race began with her leading out from the island by about a length. The Peterborough rower, however, continued to close the gap throughout and overtaking in the last few strokes. Both exciting and nail-biting, there was a lot to be learned from the experience.

by Gled Musollari

Championship Coxless Pair

SPGS alumni Helen Kirkpatrick and Lara Valt joined forces again in a IC/TSS Ch 2- at HWR this weekend. After two weeks getting the boat together, they smashed the time trial and cruised their first heat against Tulsa. In the next round they came up against a strong Cambridge pair from the blue boat who had won BUCS in the 2-. IC/TSS shot out of the blocks and led for most of the race before just losing out in the last 500m. They will both be back at the end of the week to fight again in the TSS/IC 8+ for Henley Royal qualifiers.

Bow: Helen Kirkpatrick

Stroke: Lara Valt (TSS)

by Helen Kirkpatrick