Positives for Newbury’s Metalli
REVENGE is sweet – and nothing is as sweet as getting back against your rivals.
So Newbury rower Katie Metalli was positively tasting nectar after a great weekend at Henley Women’s Regatta.
As a previous winner and current holder of the HWR Academic Eights title with her Oxford Brookes University crew from 2019, Metalli now had to move up into the much harder Championship category where she once again was to face the crew from Thames Rowing Club who had soundly beaten her crew at the Metropolitan regatta in June
Her Tideway Scullers school boat had finished in fourth place at the Met, with Leander, Brookes and Thames all finishing some way ahead.
And it was pretty much the same crews due to line up at Henley in the Championship category with a semi-final place being the target for Metalli.
If the last two years have shown anything, it is that sport can be so unpredictable.
First was the withdrawal of Leander due to a Covid contact, but such was the margin of victory at the Met that it was still expected to be between Thames and Brookes for the title.
Saturday’s time trial, however, showed just how quickly things can change in 2021.
Due to the date change, river restrictions meant it was not possible for the women to race their normal distance and so the course was reduced for both the racing and the time trial.
Brookes recorded the fastest time in 3:50.4, but it was Tideway who were the first of the chasers in 3:58.3 – just 2.3 seconds ahead of the Thames A crew from Met.
Thames B was in fourth, another 10 seconds adrift, and it was these four that then went to contest the semi-finals.
Metalli’s crew were up against the Thames A boat stroked by club captain Olivia Rogerson and they soon set out to show that the time trial was no one-off as they quickly established a halflength lead by the Redgrave enclosure, eventually winning by three-quarters of a length in 4:19.
The Oxford Brookes boat which contained three of Metalli’s 2019 crew ran out easy winners in the other semi against Thames B as they cruised home by three lengths, enabling them to ease down to the line in 2:28.
It was Brookes who took the honours in the final against Tideway in an astonishing time of 4:11 and must surely make them favourites to win one of the two new Island Challenge Cup for women’s university eights events at Henley Royal Regatta.
The Wargave Challenge Cup is just for clubs and over a longer distance, so it sets up a fascinating battle between TSS and Thames, as well as Leander, who will be sure to fight for the honours on their home stretch.