WHORR - 03.03.01

Finishing positions:
Wallingford B: 5th ... 20;22.72
Wallingford A: 71st ... 22:00.22

Wallingford B Crew members:
Stroke: Rachel E
7: Helen Casey
6: Carolyn Jones
5: Lulu Butler-Stoney
4: Nikki Ainslie
3: Helen Zawadzki
2: Anna Saunders
Bow: Amanda Bowden
Cox: Anthony Parry-Jones
Coaches: Pete Sudbury
Rob Dauncey

All the crews which beat the Wallingford crew were from the Tideway. The winners were the British National Squad, second and third were the top university crews: University of London and Imperial College. The only club crew which they were beaten by were Thames B.

The crew has been rowing in small boats over the winter and only came together as an eight 10 days before the head. They managed one outing in the crew order in which they raced but still managed to beat crews like Oxford and Cambridge University who have been training together in crews throughout the winter. It seems that the upwards of 15 hours a week training they've been putting in over the Winter has paid off. Well done girls!

HORR - 17.03.01

Finishing Positions:
Wallingford A: 67th ... 18:52.48
Wallingford B: 174th ... 19:34.48

After a winter season hugely interrupted by the weather, Wallingford Mens Senior Squad's first race of the year was to be the Head of The River Race on Saturday 17th March 2001. After last season's success with a 40th and 82nd place out of 420 crews by the 2 Wallingford eights, much was hoped for the 2001 race, but with preparation obviously far from ideal with limited outings and without a race since August, expectations had to be kept in check. The first VIII had 3 days before the Head received delivery of a brand new eight and had got used to it quickly, and the hope was that the start position of 37 would be maintained. With only about 10 regulars in the squad, the second eight was a scratch crew of old boys dragged out of (semi) retirement and a few of last year's novice squad. Their brief was to try and keep a top 200 slot for the club, which after only a single outing together would be a big achievement, but with Cambridge blue Dick Smith stroking the boat was not unacheivable. The start of the race was at 9.45am, which meant a 6am start to the day for the squad, the weather doing little to entice us out of our beds, with a constant drizzle and near freezing conditions. We boated at 8.45am to be greeted by old father Thames in a grumpy mood, doing his best to disrupt any meaningful warm-up to the race with rough conditions around Chiswick Bridge. After a couple of warm-up busrts however, things were feeling good, although any feeling in the fingers was quickly being numbed. At 10am the first eight burst through Chiswick Bridge on the rate at around 34, only to be hit by a gust and knocked momentarily out of their stride. The first section up to Barnes Bridge went pretty much to plan, but coming through onto the Hammersmith stretch the river suddenly turned into the north sea, with the wind gusting and extremely choppy conditions. The first crew battled its way up to the top of Chiswick Eyot, but with most of the training done in good conditions, they didn't cope well with the rough water. Rob Roy & Royal Chester were flying behind and took chunks out of our start and no impression was made on the crews in front. As soon as the water calmed down at Hammersmith Bridge we started to get it together, but the damage had already been done to the boat's speed and rhythm and a disappointing 67th place was all the first eight could manage. After the first 50 crews had started the conditions improved, and the second eight sensibly rating within themselves had an excellent row to finish well in the top 200 at 174th place, giving a lot of good experience to the novice rowers in the bows, and a fine improvement for Alex Marsh after finishing last the previous year ! Overall it was a disappointing race particularly for the first eight, all feeling that they hadn't done themselves justice. However, I tend to think that if anyone discounts Wallingford this year it's at their peril, as believe me there's a lot more to come yet from the boys in scarlet and light blue....