Success for Hollingworth Rowers at Henley Royal Regatta.

Three Hollingworth Lake Rowing Club athletes achieved various successes at this year’s Henley Royal Regatta. In the Remenham Challenge Cup for Elite Women’s Eights Ruth Walczak rowing in the National Under 23 women’s crew under the banner of Molesey/Leander won their first race against Oxford Brookes University to progress to the semi-finals. Here they met the GB Women’s Senior Eight and despite a brave effort were beaten by 2lengths. The Senior crew went on to beat Yale University of America in the final.

Stuart Sykes who has been training with the GB Junior Squad was invited to row in a composite Quad Sculling boat with boys from Leander and Evesham. Stuart had spent the last two weeks training with the crew based at Leander Club the high temple of rowing. The crew had previously come third at Marlow Regatta two weeks previously so were looking for a good result in The Fawley Challenge Cup event for Junior 18 boys. In their first race they beat Sir William Borlaise/Maidenhead quite comfortably. They were again triumphant in the quarter finals against Sydney Rowing Club Australia. The semifinal saw them racing a strong crew from Melbourne Grammar School and despite a very close race which was nip and tuck all the way down the course they were beaten by half a length. Melbourne were beaten in the final by Westminster School. Stuart enjoyed the experience tremendously and is looking forward to competing in the final National Junior trials at which the GB teams for the World Junior Championships and European Junior Championships will be selected. These events take place in the month of August.

The crew is : Bow-Stuart Sykes (Hollingworth), 2-L.Moon(Leander), 3-J.Sullivan(Evesham) and Stoke-T.Chung(Peterborough).

The third member of the Club, Craig Morgan was competing in the Britannia Challenge Cup which is a coxed fours event for Club Rowers. Craig was rowing in the bow seat of a crew from Agecroft. They beat a York City crew in their first race and went on to overcome Molesey, then Fermoy from Ireland to reach the final. The final was against Vesta who are a Tideway Club based at Putney in London. The race proved to be a tough one, at the barrier Agecroft held a 1 second lead, at Fawley the gap was 2 seconds and both crews still had all to play for. Agecroft managed to resist a strong final push from Vesta to come out winners by 2.5 seconds. A magnificent effort from both crews and Agecroft the worthy winners.