Junior Squad News Round-up: Munich Regatta and National Schools Regatta

During May the Thames junior squad raced at the National Schools Regatta and Oscar Bird also competed at Munich regatta.

On the 9th and 10th May, Oscar Bird and coach James Loveday travelled to Munich with the GB Rowing team to compete against Europe’s top junior crews. The weekend involved rowing in relatively scratch crews to give selectors an indication of the team’s speed for the junior world championships in August.

Racing was exceptionally challenging for all athletes, as most teams were finalising their racing preparation for the Junior European Championships. Oscar raced in fours and eights achieving success on Sunday with a bronze medal in the eight, an excellent achievement that will provide invaluable experience of international racing. Oscar has received his invite to final trials from 9th to 13th July where he will race for a place in the GB junior team.

Over the bank holiday weekend the junior squad travelled to Nottingham for the National Schools Regatta. A total of 22 of the squad raced from Junior 14 to Championship (J18) events. All events involved racing in a time trial to progress into semi-finals and then finals. Thames qualified 3 crews for the semi-finals and special mention goes to the WJ16 quad that qualified for the final, coming 5th overall.

The juniors will split up for the next month as the junior women prepare for Henley Women’s Regatta and the junior men prepare for Henley Royal Regatta. The next race in the lead up to these events will be Reading Regatta on 13th and 14th June.