Storming finish sends St Neots through
The weather stayed fine, blazers stayed on in the Enclosures, and packed riverbanks witnessed excellent racing at the first day of Henley Royal Regatta.
The Cinderella story of the year came from St Neots, whose ‘A’ crew had successfully qualified for the Wyfold coxless fours, but the ‘B’ crew were the fastest non-qualifiers and had expected a rowing-free week until Marlow withdrew suddenly amid rumours of eligibility issues. St Neots ‘B’ were promoted and given a delayed race to allow time to prepare, but following their clubmates’ earlier loss they produced a barnstormer against Worcester. After the umpire restarted the race due to early clashing, the fours were closely matched and level in the last 100 metres before St Neots won by a canvas.
There were celebrations also for Putney Town’s four, beating City of Cambridge to reach the second day for the first time in 39 years, and for Southampton’s Itchen Imperial, whose club eight made history with a first Wednesday victory, against Londoners Curlew.
Others facing a more challenging day included umpire Boris Rankov, whose red flag blew into the river before the very first race. Luckily he did not need it as Lea dispatched Wallingford’s club eight cleanly without fouling. King’s College School Wimbledon hit umpire’s launch Ariadne, which bent the end of their boat, so their Princess Elizabeth match against Bedford Modern School was postponed.
Today sees several small-boat events start, including the Silver Goblets pairs where the favourites, Croatian brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovic, have a bye. Their luggage was delayed on the flight over, so London 2012 medallist Alex Partridge has lent the Olympic doubles champions training kit from his collection. Also starting today is the Diamond Jubilee junior girls quads in which 2013 champions Latymer Upper School have set a new record by qualifying three crews.