It was a successful day for Canada at the Henley Royal - with three Canadian eights crews taking titles at the regatta in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England.
In the Grand Challenge Cup event, Canada's Under-23 men's eight (entered as Victoria City & Kingston Rowing Clubs) today beat the University of Southern California entry.
The Canadians took the American college crew - actually made up of top Estonian rowers including six members that won Under 23 World Championships last year - by two boat lengths to finish in a time of 6.29.
The Canadians came through a dramatic semi-final yesterday when they beat the Leander Club of Great Britain (a boat with some British national squad content) by just a canvas, knocking them out of the event
"Today was a very gutsy performance to say the least after a difficult but close win over Leander yesterday," said coach Doug White. "It was a team effort from the heavyweight men's side of the Rowing Canada program where the crew had the opportunity to train with the Olympic eight and had good feedback from (coaches) Mike (Spracklen) and Terry (Paul)."
The crew is Anthony Jacob of Vancouver, B.C, Conlin McCabe of Brockville, Ont., Will Dean of Kelowna, B.C., Blake Pucsek of Victoria B.C., Chris Aylard of Victoria, Will Crothers of Kingston, Ont. Stephen Connolly of Calgary, Alta., Rob Gibson of Kingston, and Ronan Sabo-Walsh (cox) of Vancouver, B.C.
The Canadians came through a dramatic semi-final yesterday when they beat the Leander Club of Great Britain (a boat with some British national squad content) by just a canvas, knocking them out of the event.
The Grand Challenge Cup has been competed for annually since 1839 with the exception of the years affected by the two World Wars. At last year's regatta, the Canadian National Team men's eight beat a crew from the Czech Republic by five lengths to win the Cup.
The Canadian Under-23s now head to Brandenburg, Germany, for their age-group World Championships, held July 17 to 20. "The crew feels very privileged to have won the Grand and look forward to the next step and their main objective - the U23 champs," said White.
Despite rainy conditions and postponed races, it was also a great day for Vancouver Island's Shawnigan Lake School - they defeated England's prestigious Eton College by three quarters of a length with a final time of 6.48, winning the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup for junior men's eights. The crew faced increasingly tough competition since it began its Henley campaign on Wednesday, and was further challenged by today's weather with the added pressure of having to wait out a storm.
Earlier today, the University of Western Ontario (London, Ont.) men's eight defeated Trinity College of Hartford (U.S.) by two and three-quarter lengths in 6:42 to win the Temple Challenge Cup final. Western also fought hard for this title - the crew defeated Harvard in the July 5 semi-final, Durham University (Great Britain) in the July 4 quarter-final, and both the University of Birmingham (Great Britain) and the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) in preliminary races.
The length of the Henley course is 1 mile 550 yards, which is 112 metres longer than the standard international distance of 2,000 metres. Unlike multi-lane international regattas, Henley still operates a knock-out draw with only two boats racing at a time. This entails the organization of up to 100 races on some of the five days of the regatta.
More info and full results: http://www.hrr.co.uk/