A busy weekend in the Regatta calendar saw Leander’s development squad athletes racing at two locations. Marlow International Regatta, that was based at Dorney Lake was the venue for the men on Saturday while the women’s squad raced at the Henley Women’s Regatta on our home water from Friday to Sunday.
Leander Club had a Men’s Eight, Men’s Quad, Men’s Four, Men’s Junior quads A and B crew, Men’s pair and four men’s singles racing at Marlow with each event starting with a 1900 meter time trial to book their place in the evening finals.
The Men’s eight coached by Matt Beechey got off to a great start by winning their time trial by 1 second against some strong crews in the championship event setting up a thrilling final that afternoon.
In the final, the Leander crew raced well and showed a big improvement from their previous races this season against the same opposition. The result was a second place to Oxford Brookes by 1 second ahead of Oxford Brookes B.
The Men’s Quad coached by Ali Brown showed good speed in the time trials to post the fastest time but in the final were unable to repeat the same result coming in second to the GB under 23 composite crew by one length.
The Men’s Junior A quad coached by James Loveday won their time trials convincingly with the B crew coached by Livinia Cowell-Sherriff coming fourth.
In the final, the A crew looked impressive taking the win by eleven seconds over the Leander B crew who raced brilliantly to take the second place against good opposition.
The Men’s Pair of Tom Ballinger and Alex Ball coached by Dave Loveday won their time trial and raced well in the final to secure the win and make it their second win in a row following on from Met Regatta.
The Men’s singles sculls was a very competitive event with Stuart Innes and Olly Dix making the A final with Callum Jonson and Matt Peters having to race out in B and C finals.
In the A final Stuart Innes who has been recovering from injury showed good improvements to achieve second place and Olly Dix came home in 6th place.