Photo of Eton College Crew, UK with three members of the Maritime Rowing Club Women's 8 (Rosie Grinalds,(8 seat) Lucy Grinalds (6 seat) and Christina Bragg (3 seat), both boats victors Sunday at the Head of the Charles by Devin Swett, Rowing News.
by Janit Stahl
At the Head of the Charles Sunday the mood was a bit different. With Coaches' faces barely discernable under their hoods, these generic shapes in floation suits hunkered down next to trailers as their teams prepared for a cold row up to the basin to get rolling for the start.
The rain was steady, the temperature at the start of the day was about 46 degrees, and both wind and snow visited later in the day, making the spectators on the banks and bridges a bit sparse and coaches, well, look like a scruffy bunch at best. Teams from states like Florida and California seemed affected the most by the cold, for obvious reasons, and as they hid in hotel lobbies and shivered after races, you had a sense that some of the crews lining up to go down the chute were less than warm as they cranked into their opening 20.
Well, maybe not Liz Trond, coach of Maritime Women's Rowing, who has dominated the Youth Eights events at two recent regattas, The Head of the Riverfront (Liz Bernal's coverage here) and Head of the Housatonic (Janit Stahl coverage here), and if these wins were any indication of how things were going to pan out, Trond had reason to be jubilant even before her girls tore by on their sprint. The Eight won by 6 seconds over Community Rowing of Boston and ten seconds over third place boat from Saratoga Rowing Association from Saratoga Springs, NY. Maritime was in 9th place last year, so they have made great strides in the past year of trianing. Community Rowing won this event last year. This year's field of 72 makes a top finish in this event even more significant.
"We have a strong group of athletes but a lot can happen starting with bow #11 at the Charles," says Trond. "We have four novice coxswains in the program," she adds. "But our coxswain (Katherine Isava) steered a great course." Regarding the weather, Trond says, "We made a pact after a practice Thursday in that horrible weather that we weren't going to make this race about the rain, cold, or the weather in any way." The crew rated at a steady 28-30, then brought it up to a 33-34 for the sprint. Regarding their cox..."we are thrilled with her."
Maritime had an entry in the Youth 4 that had a collision in just a couple races prior to the eights, stopping completely and ending up with a 8th place finish in a field of 77.
Eton College Crew came over from the Great Britain to take on the course where they won by 15 seconds in 2008. With four of that winning crew still in the boat, the crew of Ollie Fletcher (cox) Constanopolis Louloudis, WIll Kenworthy, Fred Vystavel, Caspar Joling Ed Nainby-Luxmoore, Max Manfared, WIll Locke and James Scott went out at a controlled 33-34 rating and went for the best row they had in them. "We were working on the best technical rowing," says coxswain Ollie Fletcher, who says the crew was motivated from the beginning, so he did not have to convince them to row hard, just row well. As the #1 bow, they had to keep pressing away from a field some distance back. Their win by 43 seconds really establishes this crew as a young International squad to beat. Alex Henshilwood, the coach of Eton College crew says that the Eton College crews are untried novices when they start at the school, and do not compete in their first year. The school of 1300 students has plenty of athletes to choose from, but he says sometimes the bigger boys go to rugby and other sports. "It's the biggest boarding school in England, and they are brought in on Academics only," says thier Coach. The former lightweight National team rower says they do not necessarily look at the margins when they win, though it is hard not to in this case. "They row as best as they can each time they go out," says Henshilwood. 
Photo of the Eton College 8 by SportGraphics
The athletes who are graduating from Eton this year are looking to continue in the sport, including coxswain Fletcher, and some are looking at American colleges. Surprisingly, this crew has not been rowing that long together. "We've had about 6 outings in the boat," says Henshilwood, "we have been doing a lot of sculling." See the video below of the Eton rowers, just minutes after they received their Head of the Charles gold medals.
In the Youth Doubles/Men, the Lake Union Crew of Seattle had two strong entries, with the double of Michael Wales and Aiden O'Sullivan winning by 14 seconds over crews from St. Catherine's and Saugatuck, two strong junior sculling programs in Canada (Ontario) and US/Connecticut respectively. The St. Catherine's Youth Men won the four on Sunday as well, over near-by crew South Niagara by only 3 seconds. by Janit Stahl
More on the Head of the Charles, check all regatta sections to see results for your crews!
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