Saturday
On the weekend of October 21st/22nd, USBC saw five of its athletes heading to Nottingham to compete in the British Rowing Senior Championships.
The first athlete to race was Sam Bodkin who was racing in the U23 lightweight 2x category with Molesey athlete Ash Cowley on the Saturday. Their first race was a time trial in which they placed 17th meaning they were through to the C/D semi-final. Their semi-final meant they came up against tough crews from Leander and Thames Rowing Club. The boys fought a good race and came 5th putting them through to the D final. The D final was an exciting race and in the end the boys came 2nd, 2.5 seconds behind the winners. Overall, it was a successful day for the lightweight double.
Molesey/USBC Composite 2x – Sam Bodkin, Ash Cowley
Sunday
Sunday was then the time for the senior women’s quad made up of Maile Wedgwood, Cécile Flavin, Sophie Hossack and Lizzie MacCann – they were racing in the U23 4x- category. The girls had only been training in this boat for a few sessions prior to the weekend. It was all their first experience of Brit Champs which posed for an exciting day and exciting opportunity for the girls to race their first race of the season.
In their time trial, the girls had to face some very strong cross winds across the course, however they fought back and came 18th seeing them through to the C/D semi-final. The semi-final came around very quickly, the girls had to beat one crew in order to get through to the C final so they were all pumped and ready to put down a good race. They achieved what they needed to and got through to the C final. One of the crews they were up against in the final had beaten them by 0.2 seconds in the time trial. Before the race, Sophie told the crew ‘we are going to stick with Exeter the whole way and beat them’. This gave the girls the boost they needed as it had already been a tiring day. Their final was extremely exciting, they were side-by-side the whole way with Exeter and ended up beating them by 1 second. This meant the girls placed 17th overall – a very successful day for the crews’ first Brit Champs experience.
W4x – Maile, Cecile, Sophie & Lizzie
