2 May 11: Leander athletes made the best of their opening regatta of the season by taking three titles at Wallingford Regatta.
But the day was marred by a stiff north-easterly breeze which made marshalling conditions hazardous and later forced organisers to cancel the rest of the day’s programme.
The scheduled ten hour regatta kicked off at 8am, with many less experienced crews finding it difficult to get attached to the stakeboats in the cross-head wind.
But there were no such concerns for the Leander men’s quad, stroked by Tom Wilkinson, who went off hard and established a four second lead ahead of the competition after 500m, pushing on to a nine second verdict on the line, with Tideway Scullers taking second place.
There was another straight final for the elite eights where Leander’s main competition looked to come from Thames and the Oxford Brookes/Molesey composite. Leander were first to the 500m split, Thames took a narrow lead at halfway before Leander got their noses in front again at 1500m and went on to win almost a length clear of the field.
The third Leander win came in the Intermediate 1 eights. A good win in their heat, from which they qualified with Radley and Shiplake, gave them the advantage of the sheltered Lane 1 in the afternoon’s final. With less than a second separating the three leaders after 500m Leander took the initiative and opened up a two length lead at halfway, which they extended to eight seconds on the line.
“All three of our winning crews looked long and strong, with some good bladework, and their wins should have given them the confidence they need to push on for the rest of the season” said Leander chief coach Mark Banks.
