By Mrs Reeves (Director of Rowing)

Last weekend (22nd – 23rd June) was another busy one in the Boat Club at BGS, with crews from all year groups competing across two days.

On Saturday, we headed to one of our most prestigious events on the racing calendar, Henley Women’s Regatta. Henley Women’s Regatta is the premier regatta for women in the United Kingdom. Each year more than 2,000 rowers travel from all over the UK and from across the world to compete in this prestigious event. Held on the rowing world’s most iconic stretch of the River Thames, Henley Women’s Regatta offers exciting side-by-side match racing for a wide range of competitors, from juniors to university and club to international level.

Our J16 IV competed on the Henley course for the very first time - always a special row. They put in a great performance and gained invaluable experience for their future in the sport. For the very first time, BGS had not one, but two Senior IVs competing at the event. Both fours put in fantastic rows in their time trial on Saturday morning against the best junior crews, not only in the UK, but across the world. Our First IV qualified into the next round, and our Second IV missed out by an unbelievably small margin of 0.3 seconds!

Moving into the afternoon, our First IV progressed through the regatta, eventually losing out to Henley Rowing Club, the favourites in the event, in a brilliantly executed race. On timings, the Four ranked in the top eight crews in the event - an impressive result that has not been seen from a Senior BGS crew for a number of years, an exciting time for the Boat Club as Junior Women’s rowing in the UK continues to get stronger and stronger. With the added highlight of rowing royalty Sir Matthew Pinsent following our race at the launch - some great rowing memories were made for all at this amazing event!

On Sunday, all year groups headed back to the Thames Valley to compete at Thames Valley Park Regatta. This was again another fantastic day of racing, with lots of tightly fought races over the 500m course - and BGS certainly returned with the silverware - winning events across all year groups! Congratulations to our J15 Quad, J16 IV and Senior IV who all won their event. Again, our thanks also go to the Friends of BGS Rowing, and all supporters that travelled to the event.

We now look forward to our last couple of weeks of the 2024 regatta season and wish our First VIII the very best of luck as they compete at the Henley Royal Regatta Qualifying races this Friday. We are also excited to see our J14 and J15 squads race at Peterborough Junior Regatta on Saturday.