Stratford juniors impress at first head race of the season
ROWING
STRATFORD Boat Club juniors came away with some fantastic results at the opening head race of the season on the River Thames in Oxfordshire.
The Wallingford Long Distance Sculls event, held over 4.25km, attracts top scullers from around the region.
Stratford fielded crews across a number of age groups.
The J15 squad were represented in the coxed quadruple sculls event by Freya Watts, Lucy Browne, Fleur Griffiths, Honour Keil and Harriet Holmes (coxswain) where they finished fifth.
Over the shorter 1.5km course, the J15 single scullers of Holmes and Owen Perkins finished sixth and third respectively.
In the double sculls, Ruby Howells and Bella Chappelhow came tenth in a strong field.
This left the double scull of Will Beattie and Tomi Wilcock last to compete in the U15 event where they won by more than 20 seconds.
The two quad boats from the J14 section did not disappoint.
The WJ14X+ quad of Amalia Richardson, Grace Beason, Uchenna Nwachukwa, Millie Hodgson, coxed by Imogen Hill, finished in a creditable fourth place.
The J14 4x quad boat of Charles Happel, Madison Hall, Louie Beason, Harriet Noyes, coxed by Emily Stobart, clocked a time of 8:49.4 in an event where only the Stratford crew competed.
The J17/18 crews started the new season on the challenging 4.5km course and up first for Stratford in the open junior 18 sculls event was Joe Hodson, who finished 34th out of 61 competitors.
Next up was the crew of Emily Browne, Maiya James, Nixie Brunt and Matilda Watts in the J18 women’s coxless quad event where they finished 12th.
In the afternoon division, Alice Baines and Katie Wellstead finished 11th in the WJ18 double sculls category while the crew of Mili Wilcock, Molly Gill-Swift, Hermione Hill and Jasmine Mountney finished sixth in the women’s coxless squad event.