The Remenham Challenge marked a good way to round off training before Christmas with a run out from Chiswick Steps to the London flagpole against the Remenham clubs.

For the third year in a row the men won the headship, this time with a last-minute line up (and not a very healthy one at that), beating a strong Molesey crew by two seconds. The men’s 2nd 8 finished five seconds behind Molesey. Both were solid results given that some fairly key people were absent and the crews were fatigued from trial 8s and 5km tests.

The 3rd 8 finished a creditable seventh, just one second behind London’s 2nd 8 and a 4th 8 made of those left standing finished 15th, just beating a strong performance from the Thames veterans’ 8.

The women’s 1st 8 had a bit of shock with Molesey catching them and failed to respond as well as they might have liked, with the end result being a rather poor row 15 seconds behind Molesey. However with many new faces, and a new coach, there is still much to be learned and gained. The women’s 2nd 8 finished 24th and won the intermediate trophy.

A brand-new women’s masters’ 8 – the first time for some years that Thames has found enough recently-retired athletes to boat a female veterans’ crew – debuted in style, winning the masters’ trophy less than 40 seconds behind the Thames women’s 1st 8.

Our novice men also won their pennant, beating two Vesta 8s. The novice women found the rough conditions a little tough but the 1st and 2nd novice 8s finished second and third in their category, behind winners Kingston. A gutsy row from the 3rd novice women’s 8 saw them close behind Vesta’s 1st 8 and comfortably ahead of the Vesta 2nd 8.

Now things will start ramping up with Quintin, Hammersmith, Reading and the Tideway head races all coming up in the next two and a half months.

Remenham Challenge 2015