News

Posted: 26th August 2024

The GB Rowing Team travelled from the UK to St Catherine’s to take part in the combined U19, U23 & Senior World Rowing Championships. On board were three Scottish athletes and two Scottish coaches, ready to take on the Royal Canadian Henley course. 

The U23 regatta was the first to begin, which saw Josh Matthews’ (Edinburgh University BC) quadruple scull get their campaign started. Unfortunately, a short injury meant that Josh missed the heat on Sunday, and instead Ruben Taylor, the U19 men’s sculling spare joined the crew of Nat Gauden, Elliot Donovan Davies and Harry Ruinet for their first race, where they placed fifth. By Tuesday, Josh had returned to the crew just in time to race the repechage, which they won to earn their place in the semi-final. Wednesday’s semi-final saw one of the closest finishes at the regatta, with the British crew securing the final qualifying spot in the A-final ahead of Ireland by a mere two-hundredths of a second.

Josh Matthews and crew (BM4x)

Image credit:  Benedict Tufnell | British Rowing

The U23 crew, comfortably the youngest crew in the event, with all four athletes making their U23 debuts, held their own in an A-final where a new World Best Time was set, and the whole field was separated by only five seconds, to finish in sixth place.

The GB U23 Team won five gold and one bronze medal at the championships, placing them atop the medal table, ahead of Germany who secured four golds.
The women’s sweep events were dominated by Great Britain, taking gold in the pair, four and eight, with the men taking gold in both the four and eight. Britain’s final medal was the bronze medal earned by the women’s quadruple scull.

The U19 Regatta, began on the Wednesday, with the Scottish athletes both starting their campaign on Thursday. Penny Irvine (Aberdeen Schools RA) was first up, contesting the heat of the women’s pair with crewmate Annabelle Thornton (Sir William Perkin’s School) and coach Holly Reid (Aberdeen Schools RA). The young pair, both making their World Championship debuts, rowed an aggressive middle 1000m to make sure that they were able to avoid the repechage on the way to the A-Final on Sunday, finishing second behind the Italian crew. Later that morning Sophie Sinclair (Aberdeen Schools RA) also made her world championship debut during the U19 women’s eight’s preliminary race for lanes, where the GB crew finished a comfortable second place behind a classy crew from the USA.

Penny and crewmate Annabelle (JW2-)

Image credit:  Benedict Tufnell | British Rowing

On the eighth and final day of the regatta, the U19 events would all draw to a close. Penny Irvine’s pair was the first GB boat to contest their A-Final and raced a strong race but had to settle for 6th place on this occasion where the field was stunned by a dominant Romanian pairing. Sophie Sinclair raced the penultimate medals final for Great Britain, as her women’s eight looked to challenge the crew from the USA who had beaten them in the preliminary race. They fought hard to challenge the US crew, but couldn’t overturn the previous result, however their efforts gave them clear water ahead of the Italian crew which won them a fantastic silver medal!

Sophie Sinclair and crew (JW8+) on the podium

Image credit:  Benedict Tufnell | British Rowing

The Great Britain U19 team ended the week fourth on the medal table, with one Gold (JM8+) and five Silver medals (JW2x, JM4-, JW4-, JW4x & JW8+), but move up to joint second on medal count.

The combined World Championships marks the end of the flat water season after a superb run of results for Scots on GB teams, at the Paris Olympics, Coupe de la Jeunesse and now the World Championships. We now look forward to watching our Scottish Beach Sprints athletes compete at the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals (13-15th Sep) and Home International Rowing Beach Sprints (28th September).