The quad taking some time out to pose in front of Gloriana

The intrepid troops travelled down to Henley again for the qualifying races for Henley Royal Regatta. With only internation eights, quads and singles available for the women in this regatta, competition is always tight, yet we arrived with high expectations of qualifying. Pippa was racing in her single, and battled her way down the 2112m course against a very strong stream and an even stronger headwind to successfully qualify. The women's quad of Lindsay, Fiona, Catherine and Nikki were one of the last crews to race, and rowing into what felt like the sunset, they followed suit and qualified for the regatta.

The squad travelled down on the following Wednesday in order to train on the course, with racing starting on the Friday. The quad came up against a strong Australian U23 team, who knocked them out and went on to win, whilst also doubling up and making the semi-finals of the Remenham Cup as well. They then went on to win gold at the U23 Championships. Pippa was drawn against the Irish Olympic sculler Sanita Purspure and again unfortunately was beaten. However this is the first time that the squad has qualified two women's boats into the open events at the regatta which shows the strength in depth we have in the group at the moment.

Amidst fears that the regatta might be cancelled, with rumours making it up the M1 that the river was now flowing over the fields, and there was a hurricane on the way, the squad travelled down to Henley last weekend, where they were greated to a river well within its banks, if not in a slight hurry to make its way downstream. Clearly these rowers have never trained on the Trent before! Reassured that the event would take place, the quad set out for an evening paddle to get used to the course and the water. With 5 crews entered, the first race would be on the Saturday. The senior double of Ellie and Philly were scheduled to compete in the time trial to reduce crews down to 16 for side by side racing. However, with strong winds forecast, the organisers chose to reduce this to the first 8 in order to miss racing in the worst of the weather. Unfortunately, the girls came 12th, so would have qualified in any other year, but sadly missed out this year. The Club 4+ from the rowing club also lost out in a similar way in very changeable and gusty conditions.

Photo cheekily stolen from Iain Weir at Rowingphotography.co.uk - he takes some good photos - have a look!

The elite quad drew a Thames/Tideway Scullers in the quarter finals. Moving onto the stakeboats there was an umpire on each to assist the crews as conditions were pretty difficult, with a very strong stream and a strong headwind on top of this. The quad attached without too many problems, until the composite decided they wanted to attach to our stakeboat as well as theirs, and swung their bows round. We moved away and watched as the quad proceeded to lie sideways across the river - not the best position to start the race. Knowing that the other quad had struggled gave us confidence, and once we got started we moved away to win easily. We knew that the next round would be harder as we had drawn Leander Club, containing girls who have all raced at senior international level recently. On Sunday morning the quad found themselves on the start alongside their strongest opposition to date. A great start saw us come out of the island slightly ahead, but despite a really good race, they moved away inch by inch to take the win. This crew then went on to beat Vesper BC from the USA in the final.

Fiona was competing in elite singles and drew local sculler Kris Johnson in her first round and was sadly knocked out. With some scullers taking well over 9 minutes to complete the 1500m course due to the conditions, this was an endurance event!

The High Performance Group will be heading down to the HRR qualifiers in the hope of racing in the Princess Grace Challenge Cup for quads and the Princess Royal Challenge Cup for singles.

A very damp and cold winning quad!

A small group travelled down to Dorney Lake to race at the annual Met Regatta hosted by London Rowing Club. This was our first chance to race some of the bigger clubs from down south on a multilane course and show them what we're made of! The site is being prepared for the Olympics so currently looks like (and is) a bit of a building site. If youre heading down to watch the Olympics, bring some binoculars if you are on the top of the grandstand - they are huge!

On Saturday the senior double of Ellie and Philly raced well above their status and just missed out on a place in the final of IM1 doubles. In the afternoon the double were joined by Laura and Catherine to race in IM1 quads, where a good race saw them come in third. This was a completely scratch crew so a pretty good effort! Racing in elite doubles, the lightweight composite crew of Nikki and Lizzie Polgreen from Isle of Ely came second in the final. Although not their best race, they learnt a lot and will continue on to try and gain selection for the World University Championships in September.

Sunday saw the women's quad try to retain their elite win from last year, and did this in style. The crew of Lindsay, Laura, Catherine and Nikki gained a 5 second lead from the first 500m and kept pushing away to retain the John West Trophy. Both the senior double and the quad will go on to compete at Henley Women's Regatta, where Fiona will also be racing her single.

Our sessions with yoga sport science specialist Heidi Unwin have improved with the warmer weather - despite some odd looks from people walking by!

In other news: Fiona has made a welcome return to the water after a period of illness and is making good progress. Yasmin is also hoping to be able to train in a boat again this week after her rib injury in April prevented her from taking part in the trials for the U23 World Championships this summer.
For now - Happy rowing!

The squad have been busy winning races this month. First race up was Leicester Regatta, where Pippa raced with Jonny Walton whilst Nikki paired up with Craig Turner from Loughborough, racing in elite mixed doubles. The two doubles both progressed without too much trouble to the final where they met in this side by side knockout event. As lightweights, Nikki and Craig were faster off the start, catching Pippa by surprise, but eventually (over the 700m course) the power of Pippa and Jonny showed, and they went on to win. Once down the remainder of the race can only be described as like rowing in a washing machine - it definitely tested our core! This was the first win for the group in the regatta season. Thanks to Leicester Rowing Club for organising a great days racing.

Next on the racing schedule was the British University Championships, held in Nottingham. Pippa raced in championships singles for loughborough University and dominated the event from the start, winning the event in style and securing her position as a lead sculler in the university and U23 field.

Philly and Ellie raced for Nottingham Trent University, first coming 6th in the final of the womens' quads, and then on the Monday raced in intermediate doubles. The regatta was disrupted due to unexpected fog first thing in the morning, meaning the girls raced a 1500m time trial first, with the first 6 progressing to the A final, with the next 6 moving to the B final and the rest eliminated. The girls put in a strong performance to progress to the A final. Once there they had a great race, but were slightly outmanouvered and came home strongly in fourth place. Although disappointed not to medal, the girls learnt a lot and came back fighting at Notts City Regatta, where they came second behind a more experienced Mortlake Anglian and Alpha crew in IM3 doubles. The girls were due to double up into a quad with Lindsay and Catherine, but a lack of further entries meant that the quad were unable to race. Lindsay and Catherine both raced elite singles, where they came home fourth and fifth. A good start to the season given a winter disrupted by injury. Laura was due to race in the single as well, yet illness forced her to withdraw from both Notts City and the Masters Championships the following day. At the Masters Championships Lindsay raced in a quad and a four, winning both, and maintaining her 100% success rate at this regatta.

On the same weekend as Notts City Nikki raced at a speed order test at Caversham in a potential lightweight double for the World University Championships (FISU) in Kazan, Russia. Currently no selection has been made for this championship which is held in early September, and she will continue to race the double through the early part of the season in a bid to be selected.