Rowers excel with a medal-winning weekend

Wycliffe Head, Saturday 1 February

The rowers at The King’s School started this year with a medal-winning weekend at the Wycliffe Head in Gloucestershire, followed by individual and team success at the English Indoor Rowing Championships on Sunday.

On Saturday, four out of the ten King’s crews won gold medals at the Wycliffe Head. This is the first event of the year to draw a national level of competition as the King’s crews battled it out against crews from some of the major schools and clubs from around the country. The boy’s senior 2^nd VIII won the J18 2^nd VIIIs category, whilst the boys 3^rd VIII won the Novice VIII category. The boys J15 VIII defeated crews from Abingdon School and Winchester College, amongst others, to win the J15 category by 44 seconds over the 2^nd place crew. The J15 girls completed the medal haul, with the gold medal in the J15 octuple category. The J16 girls coxed four, racing up a level in the Open Women’s category finished in second place, just 3 seconds behind the crew from Pangbourne College.

The girls 1^st VIII finished in 3^rd place in the J18 category whilst the girls 2^nd VIII finished in 5^th place. All of the King’s crews will have gained a considerable amount of experience from the challenging 4.5km course and will again be in action later this month at the Runcorn Head hosted by Runcorn Rowing Club.

English Indoor Rowing Championships, Sunday 2 February

For the first time, King’s sent a team to the English Indoor Rowing Championships, held in the Manchester Velodrome. Four J16 boys, four J15 boys, and 17 J14 rowers competed against athletes from around England. The J16 boys’ team came to a close 4^th place, just missing out on a medal by 4 seconds. The J15 boys’ team racing up an age category in the J16 event finished in 6^th place.

In the J14 category, the girls’ team from King’s finished in an impressive 2^nd place to win the silver medals. In the individual events, Archie Barker (5FOX) produced a great performance to finish in the silver medal place, with Alex Crees (5WER) in 6^th place, Euan Cowdell (5LES) in 7^th place and Nathan Wilmot (5WAL) in 10^th place. Luke Dillon (4DUT) was able to go one better in the J15 category, winning the gold medal.

For all of the King’s athletes competing, it was a great day and brilliant to see so many individual and team performances. The teams will now look to build on these results on the water over the coming months.

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