Washington Temple lead way on a day of shattered records
American eight power to new Fawley time Groom and Beaumont equal Barrier mark
Records tumbled and spectators sweltered on the hottest day of Henley Royal Regatta, where a useful tailwind propelled crews up the course past the historic Barrier and Fawley markers.
Among the eight crews to put themselves into the record books were the University of Washington Temple eight, with a new Fawley time, and GB internationals Angus Groom and Jack Beaumont, who equalled the doubles Barrier mark. In an extraordinary Prince Albert student fours race Imperial College set a course record after overhauling Durham, who themselves set new times to both the Barrier and Fawley.
Britain’s new women’s quad were only one second outside the Prin- cess Grace Barrier time, an encouraging sign for a newly-formed crew.
More great sculling was evident in the Diamond Jubilee junior women’s quads, where Latymer Upper School and Germans Kreuzgasse were level for half the course, Latymer pulling out a short lead then having to hold off a charge from Kreuzgasse to win by one foot.
A tense schoolboy eights race had the grandstands on their feet as Radley fought off repeated attacks from Shiplake to claim the chance to race St Paul’s today.
Most of the senior internationals progressed untroubled to the semifinals, including British sculler Victoria Thornley and her Swiss nemesis Jeannine Gmelin, Norwegian sculler Kjetil Borch and double Olympic champion Mahe Drysdale, who is returning from a lengthy period away from training.
Drysdale recently suffered a broken boat in a bad training accident, so was rowing in his back-up, the Rio gold-medal boat, for his win against Paul Tufte.
The women’s Town Challenge fours had a race postponed after Bath University and Leander had an equipment failure during warmup, and then had steering issues at the start before rowing through Yale University. There was also trouble for Sydney’s junior men’s quad, who collided with a river sign during training in the morning, but won their postponed race in the evening against Gloucester.
Umpire Boris Rankov has regularly presided over controversial races, and yesterday his hand was hovering near the red disqualification flag as Ladies Plate eight Berliner moved sharply over in front of an Australian composite. He let the Germans take their win, but warned them not to repeat the steering in today’s semi-final.