The NRC girls representing England at the Home International Regatta 2012

After their performances at the British Championships, 6 of the group were invited to race as part of the England team for the Home International Regatta. The 50th Home International Regatta was held over 1500m in Cardiff bay this year.The group were competing in 6 of the 10 events available at the regatta (Wlwt2x, W1x, W2-, W4-, W8+, W4x), with wins coming in the light double for Nikki, and in the 8+ for Alex, Catherine, Laura and Lindsay who were joined by the Molsey 4+.

When the girls weren't winning, they were coming in second, with the pair losing out by just a bowball, the four coming back from a poor start to take second, the quad with Nikki in being beaten by a strong heavyweight Irish crew and Fiona also coming in just out of the elusive first place in her single. However, the strong showing by the Nottingham girls as well as the rest of the senior women in the England team gave them an unassailable lead coming in to the lunch break, ensuring that they retained the overall team trophy for another year.

The majority of the group now take a couple of weeks break, probably spent on the sofa watching the Olympics!

                                                The triumphant pair of Laura and Lindsay

We had a mixed weekend of racing at the 40th british Rowing Championships held at Holme Pierrepont. Fortunately the event went ahead despite fears at the beginning of the week that the lake would be too flooded.

We had two lightweight scullers, two heavyweight scullers, two under 23 scullers, a pair and a coxed 4 entered. Saturday saw Nikki win her heat to progress straight through to the final. The same heat was contested by Yasmin, who progressed through to the repecharge where she unfortunately just missed out on a place in the final. Pippa also won her heat to progress through to the final, whilst Fiona had to make do with a place in the repecharge, which would be contested on Sunday. Ellie and Philly were making the transition back into the single after spending the season in a double (an event not offered at the British Championships), with Ellie progressing through to the repecharge. The coxed four had a tough heat, containing all three of the eventual medal winners, causing them to also fight for a place in the final through a repecharge, although having posted a much faster time that those in the other heat they were confident they would make it through.

Sunday was finals day for the senior events. Unfortunately, despite racing and qualifying for the final, Fiona had to withdraw through illness. After the repeharges we had the pair, 4+, Pippa and Nikki all contesting for medals. Nikki was first to race her final, having a tight race with Fran Rawlins from MAA, and eventually finished in second behind Lizzie Polgreen from Isle of Ely. Pippa stormed her final to win, as did the pair of Lindsay and Laura. The 4+ was a new venture for Catherine, Alex Johnson, Laura, Lindsay and cox Amy Henfrey and although improving as the regatta continued, could not quite find the turn of speed they needed to the line, and came in 4th.

This leaves the squad with 3 British Champions and a silver medallist in a regatta with significantly reduced racing opportunities for the senior events, with the bigger boats being contested at the Diamond Jubilee Regatta held at Dorney Lake in October. This makes up 50% of the medal winning boats from NRC.

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.