HENLEY
France’s heavyweights and lightweights also challenge Britain — probably the unbeaten top four — in the Stewards’ Cup, along with a development crew from Germany, and an odd four from China which does not have much of an international pedigree. Many of Britain’s other Aiguebelette
and European medallists will be on show, including the women’s eight facing Australia and the Netherlands in the Remenham. This also features crews from both Cambridge and Oxford, ahead of their Boat Race move to the Tideway next year, and a GB development crew racing as Imperial and Leander. The GB men’s quad, fresh from their victory in France, look capable of eating the Australians and French for breakfast in the Queen Mother Challenge Cup, with a side-order of the Dutch and Americans. Meanwhile the Princess Grace event for women’s quads has no overseas entries, but three GB crews: Leander and Gloucester being the senior team quad, Molesey and Putney Town the lightweights, and Gloucester and Northwich the under-23 crew.
Nobody will have to qualify in the
Princess Royal women’s singles, after a select entry of 8 was published. The biggest names are holder and Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova from the Czech Republic, and Julia Michalska- Plotkowiak from Poland. The latter won doubles bronze — Poland’s first Olympic women’s rowing medal — at London 2012 and then married Boat Race Blue Michal Plotkowiak and gave birth to baby Sophie last year before returning to training towards Rio. Up against them is a rising star, GB’s
junior world singles champion Jess Leyden from Hollingworth Lake, who just won elite singles at Henley Women’s Regatta, and Hungary’s equivalent, under-23 international Krisztina Gyimes, who has been studying and rowing at university in the USA.
6
Over on the men’s singles side, things
are looking familiar. The demolition of the reigning world champion and entire field in Aiguebelette by New Zealand legend Mahe Drysdale, only 8 months after coming back to full training, will make him favourite again for the Diamond Challenge Sculls, against challenges from new father Alan Campbell, Dutchman Roel Braas, and team scullers from the USA, Australia and France. There are two wildcards, one of whom is the first Israeli competitor at the regatta, in the form of Danl Fridman who has a long international record and reached the final of the Europeans in 2013.
fourth at the London Olympics. The official GB squad pair entered is Alan Sinclair and Nathaniel Reilly-O’Donnell, but with coach Jürgen Grobler’s focus now firmly on the four and eight, it’s not likely this entry will race. There are three other senior international pairs: the fast European silver medallists Rogier Blink and Mitchel Steenman from the Netherlands as well as the French and Greeks, while South Africa’s under-23 champion pair are also in the mix. The Double Sculls has been claimed
The GB men’s quad look capable of eating the Australians and French
for breakfast in the Queen Mother Challenge Cup
More intriguing is an entry from
New Zealand’s former world champion, 2008 bronze medallist and Oxford Blue George Bridgewater, who is aiming towards what can only be described as “doing a Searle”. Having gone into equity trading after doing an MBA at Oxford, married and had two children, Bridgewater felt the hunger watching the 2012 Olympics. He is now training as hard as he can to try and make the New Zealand team in time for the Rio Games, and Henley will be a good early test of his strength and water fitness. At least one new name will be
engraved on the Silver Goblets & Nickalls’ Challenge Cup this year, since only one previous winner, South African Shaun Keeling, is taking part. He won in 2008 with his former partner Ramon di Clemente, and is now back with Lawrence Brittain, with whom he was
by a roster of stellar names in the past, and though few of the top crews are coming to Henley this year, it should still be a fascinating contest. John Collins won this with Alan Sinclair as Leander in 2012, but he and Jonny Walton may have a harder time this year up against Dutchmen Thijs van Luijk and Dirk Uittenbogaard, who pushed them firmly into sixth at the European Championships. Apart from a somewhat hopeful-looking new combination from France, the principal challengers are all lightweights, including European LM1x champion Pedro Fraga from Portugal, who is back with his doubles partner Nuno Mendes if his recent injury allows, and a new Japanese combination. If we are lucky the draw could yield up a vintage battle between the French and South African lightweights. John Smith and Lawrence Ndlovu are stern pair of the South African LM4- which won gold with a spectacular sprint at the London Olympics: they are now in a lightweight double because there aren’t enough top rowers to make a four. And Stany Delayre and Jeremie Azou are on a formidable comeback from last July, when Delayre was injured in a crash during training. The French lightweights won gold at the Europeans and again to ecstatic applause in Aiguebelette, and might be fast enough to beat the openweights: they posted nearly as fast a time as Collins and Walton, at the World Cup.
ROW360 // Issue 001
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