Henley Women’s Regatta (HWR) is a multi-day event, promising exciting ‘knock-out’ style rounds over a weekend of racing.
Three Surrey crews traveled to Henley-on-Thames (21st-23rd June) to take on other universities and clubs from around the country (and for some, around the world!).
Entering the Aspirational Lightweight 1x, Maile Wedgwood fought it out with numerous strong scullers across the 3 day event. With a time-trial completed on Friday morning to establish a seeding among the competitors, the athletes turned their attention to the first heat on Friday afternoon. In the first round, Maile drew Plunkett (from Cantabrigian RC) – an experienced sculler who had won the time-trial. In a hard-fought race, Maile was able to pull away with about 500m to go and progressed to the second round.
Maile raced the quarter-finals against Robotham (Peterborough RC) on Saturday and semi-finals against Hoff (Oxford University) on Sunday morning before successfully progressing to the FINAL of Henley Women’s Regatta on Sunday afternoon. Maile proved a force to be reckoned with, overcoming her opponents one-by-one, and beat Slater (Wallingford RC) in their last race of the weekend – WINNING the Aspirational Lightweight 1x title and setting a new course record in the process!
Maile’s name will go down in history with USBC as the Club’s first HWR winner and course record holder. If you would like to read more about Maile’s experience from her perspective, please see her own personal account of the weekend here.
Maile WINNING! the Aspirational Lightweight 1x at HWR
Racing in the Aspirational Academic 4-, Jas Bone, Megan Pearson, Sophie Hossack & Cécile Flavin put down a strong performance in the morning time-trial before drawing the University of London (UL) in the first round. The girls unfortunately did not progress to further racing after being knocked-out by the extremely strong UL crew, who beforehand, were favourites to win the event.
Aspirational 4- – Cécile Flavin (L), Sophie Hossack, Megan Pearson & Jas Bone
With a large entry for the Aspirational 2x (which is open to both academic institutions and clubs), Fiona Norris and Maddy Brown unfortunately did not qualify for side-by-side racing.
Aspirational 2x – Maddy Brown (L) & Fiona Norris
The season begins to come to a proud end for the girls, with Maile’s attention turning to the Henley Royal Regatta qualifying races on Friday 28th June.
