8 March: A hastily assembled Leander eight, sponsored by Invesco Perpetual, finished a clear second place at this year's Women's Eights Head over the 4 1/4 mile Championship course between Mortlake and Putney.
Despite the presence of Olympic pairs finallist Lou Reeve in the stroke seat and Beijing silver medallist Debbie Flood at 5, the Leander crew was only assembled at the last minute. Sickness and injury denied the crew a preliminary race at Reading the previous weekend, but hopes were high that the crew, a combination of development athletes as well as experienced internationals, could make their mark.
Oxford University, competing as Osiris, led the 300-boat field off the mark after finishing Head in 2008, when more senior crews were kept away by pre-Olympic duties. So it was that the fastest crews this year were to be found down the field among the new entries, with Leander starting off behind a multi-national Dutch/GB/New Zealand composite, and one place ahead of the the GB composite stroked by Debbie Flood's Olympic crewmate, Katherine Grainger.
As the course began to unfold so the coxes had a tough job battling for position rounding the corner below Barnes Bridge but Leander's Zoe de Toledo held her nerve as the crew settled into a strong and powerful rhythm. But the finish result showed a clear win for the Dutch composite, which included Annie Vernon, a third member of the Olympic quad. Less than a second behind Leander, in third place, came Grainger's GB crew while Osiris slipped to ninth overall.
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