GB winter trials

For the first time in four years Thames went to GB senior trials. We had four women and three men erging and racing their singles in the lovely city of Boston, Lincolnshire.

For the men we had Alex Morris who won the Thames Challenge Cup in 2017, Zack Youell who stroked the Britannia Challenge Cup 4+ to a HRR semi final in 2017, and Alex Waller who is in his gap year at Thames after a successful junior career at St Paul’s.

For the women we had Pippa Whitaker who was the runner up in Elite 1x at Henley Women’s Regatta for Imperial College, Nat Long and Meghann Jackson who were runners up in Senior 4- at HWR for IC, and Alex Styles who was the runner up in the Academic 8+ at HWR for Oxford Brookes.

2k erg test

We started on Saturday with the 2k on the erg. After a pre-erg in the morning to get the first nerves out of the system Zack, Pippa and Nat were the first ones up.

Zack had an excellent 2k and pushed himself to another PB of 6:11.2. Nat also had a PB with 7:02.1 and Pippa pulled a solid 7:02.0 to make the cut for Sunday.

Meg unfortunately didn’t make the cut for Sunday with 7:09 and her weekend was over.

In the afternoon the lightweights were up. Alex Morris was the first to go producing a score of 6:29.2. This was enough to make the cut but two days of being ill earlier in the week made it a lot harder then planned. Alex Waller started really strong but struggled in the middle; he still did 6:32.9 which was enough to make Sunday.

Last but not least was Alex Styles, she pulled 7:34.5 which was a very strong PB and made the cut for Sunday.

5k row

After a pre-paddle in the morning everybody was ready to go. Some good warm-up music got the guys into the mood to attack this 5k.

Zack again had an excellent race and executed what he did on the Tideway. Alex Morris had a bit of a struggle because of his illness midweek and didn’t have the power to push the full 5k. Alex Waller had a very strong 5k and finished 26th, the fastest of the Thames rowers.

Pippa was the first of the Thames women to start. She had a decent row to finish 16th place but it wasn’t what she wanted.

Nat looked strong and had a good row to finish up in 27th place, while Alex Styles rowed very aggressively and finished in a very respectable 16th place.

Overall we’re pretty content with the results. Hopefully a couple of athletes will get invited to the December assessment but we will definitely go for the February trials.