29 May 2011
The National Schools Regatta provided its fair share of thrills and spills but in the end the school collected its biggest ever medal haul with two golds and 5 silvers.
The J14A’s kicked off the weekend in tremendous fashion winning a silver medal in a tightly contested Octuples final. The crew produced their best performance of the season at the right time to come in 2nd out of 23 crews entered into their event. The J14B’s came fifth in their final while the J14C’s were the fastest C crew at the regatta and only narrowly missed out making the B’s final.
On Saturday the three J15 crews all performed strongly in their opening races with both the B and C crew securing semi final berths. The J15A’s knew they were in for a tough race in their semi-final having previously lost to the other five crews in their heat. Despite a slow start the crew raced exceptionally well to row through Eton and Kings Chester to secure a spot in the final. The strong wind and a difficult lane draw made racing challenging for the crews in the next round but all three can take heart from a relatively encouraging set of results in comparison with previous years.
The J16A’s provided the race of the day. The boys cruised through their semi final to set up a showdown with the winner of the other semi-final, Hampton. The two crews left the rest of the field in their dust as they went head to head down the track in the final. With no more than one second separating them through the timing marks there was no let up all the way. Lying a quarter of a length down with 250m remaining the crew of Max Brittan, Kristian Wood, Matthew Carter, William Horlock, Rory Brampton, Thomas Browne, Russell Orr Burns, Edward McLaughlin and Joel Cooper came surging through the line only to be denied the gold medal by the narrowest of margins, 0.19sec. The crew and coach deserve great praise for what in any other year would have been a championship winning performance.
The J16B four raced on the Sunday in the coxed fours event and came in tenth overall and 1st as a B crew. Kristian Wood, Thomas Browne, William Horlock and Joel Cooper picked up a second silver medal in the J16 coxless fours event.
The 1st Eight and 2nd Eight both won their respective semi-finals to set up a show down with Eton’s 1st and 2nd boats as winners from the other semi-finals. In the final of both events the crews produced tenacious performances by leading from the front with Eton in hot pursuit. With Eton and Abingdon moving away from the field it was Eton who proved stronger in the closing stages to edge Abingdon into silver. Despite the disappointment of coming second both crews can take great pride in their result.
On the Sunday the so far elusive gold medal was to be decided by time trial with very strong winds making side-by-side racing impossible. The 1st and second eight were split into fours and pairs to compete in the three Championship sweep events on offer. First up was the coxless pair of GB trial winners Jamie Copus and Felix Newman, the pair showed the rest of the field a clean pair of heels as they recorded an emphatic victory by 6 seconds over the 1000m course. The boys are the first Abingdon pair ever to win the Committee’s Cup.
In the Championship Coxed Fours the crew of AJ Hatzis, Andy Halls, Matthew Carter, Tom Pagel and Neil McKenzie performed strongly to come in 4th – 4 seconds behind the winners.
In the premier race of the day, the Championship Coxless Four, the crew of William Davey, William Sadler, John Carter and Vassilis Ragoussis had their sights firmly set on winning the Royal Engineers Cup that was last won by the school in 1997. With Saturday’s disappointment still firmly in their minds the crew left nothing to chance as they set off down the course. On arrival at the landing stage the crew were in fits of pain and laughter with the effects of their exertion and the confidence that they had put everything down that they had left. Unlike side-by-side racing the head race format leaves a period of anguish as you wait for the publication of the final results. A phone call confirmed the victory and what followed were jubilant scenes as the four upper sixth leavers won their first National Schools gold medals at the last chance available to them.
The hospitality of the FASBC tent and dozens of supporters made the Boat Club’s most successful National Schools a wonderful celebration and provided a golden lining to our silver cloud.
