Henley Royal Regatta Qualifiers

This year Leeds Rowing Club entered three crews into Henley Royal Regatta, with all three going through the qualifier stage.

In a first for the club, we entered the Britannia Challenge Cup for mens coxed fours, the Silver Goblets & Nickalls ‘ Challenge Cup for coxless pairs, and the Fawley Challenge Cup for junior boys coxless quads.

To have a club mens crew enter the hardest club event in the Brit, and also to step up and compete in an international standard event such as the Goblets was a sign of how no challenge was too big for our senior mens squad. For the juniors, to even consider entering the Fawley would have been unthinkable last season, now the bar has been set.

For the pair and four, this was their best performances to date. For the quad, this was a memorable experience for all of the juniors experiencing the Henley stretch for the first time and acquitting themselves well in what was the hardest event to qualify in (50 crews entered, only 5 spaces to qualify).

While none of the crews made it through qualifiers, a first in many years, it was considered a job well done with lots of lessons learned ready for next season.

A special mention goes to our former and student members who were also racing at HRR - Emily and Charlotte both qualified in the Island for Southern Methodist University (USA) and Edinburgh Uni, and to Brooke and Rebecca for qualifying in the Wargrave in two separate Thames RC crews.

Finally a huge well done to the athletes for embracing the challenge of racing in the more challenging events and to the coaches for all their hard work this season on making it happen.