SPOTLIGHT ON ROWING: FROM BEGINNER TO NATIONAL MEDALLIST

Rowing at Hampton is a fantastic sport to experience, but also one of the toughest sports to compete in. Being in the first year of rowing for all of the Third Year rowers, there has been significant improvement and progress throughout the year.

As a squad we have gone from taking our first rowing strokes to winning national medals or simply experiencing the joy of racing. The season has been great for the whole squad. Second place at the Junior Sculling Head and Junior Sculling Regatta (both national events) for the First octo (8x+) and a Bronze medal at National Schools’ Regatta, the biggest junior rowing regatta in the country.

Highlights included a win in the Second 8x+ at the Junior Sculling Head and a first and second place finish in the Hampton Head, which the School hosts every year. As well as being competitive right at the top of the squad, all levels of Third Year rowers have taken part in races with many crews going to BASHER and BASHER II (BASHER is an acronym for the six big rowing schools in the country: Bedford, Abingdon, St Paul’s, Hampton, Eton and Radley), Hampton Head, a private fixture against St George’s at the start of the year, and more regattas to come before the season finishes.

What can be said about rowing at Hampton is that there is a great unity as a squad. The ability when racing, when every muscle in your body is screaming to stop, to keep on going, if not for you but the others in the boat, and let’s not forget how important the cox is in drowning out that voice.

The team spirit in rowing can be stronger than any other sport, crews are so tightly knit yet the First 8x+ for example has had 16 different rowers and coxes this year (including a J16 who kindly coxed the First 8x+ at the Teddington Head). Despite multiple changes in crews there is still this great sense of camaraderie. The transition from a new rower to National Schools’ medallist has been helped enormously by this unity.

There is that constant competitive drive among members of the squad to get a better ergo score or get your blades in at the right time together at the catch of every stroke. The desire to improve yourself and do better than you did last time, a week ago, the last race, the last term, the start of the year.

Frustratingly physical improvement does not work in a straight line but over the course of the year, together as a squad, we have improved. We have gone from rowing half of the boat at a time with square blades, to rowing full crew with feathering, to being able to slowly raise the rate cap until we are rowing stronger and neater than we were before.

Learning from the team of coaching staff what to do and how to do it, we have ended the season as a squad with four national medals. We can’t wait for next year!