Everyone's favourite rowing carnival kicked off today on the Henley reach, with a large number of crews facing the hurdle of some seriously tough qualifying races to overcome.
Conditions left no room for excuses as temperatures rose and a beautiful English summer afternoon, virtually no stream and an accommodating light tail wind, greeted competitors. The forecast for next week appears to be more of the same, and with Southern England in the early stages of dought, the only water coming down the reaches of the Upper Thames is that being that released as cruisers move up and down through the numerous locks on the river. So it's looking likely that, as with Henley Women's regatta last weekend when ten course records fell, there could be some quick times in evidence next week.
The scheduling of the World Championships in November this year has gifted the Royal with a juicy entry in the form of many international crews in the top level events, and those lucky enough to be attending the regatta from Friday onwards can look forward to some excellent quality racing.
The only downside of this impressive entry is that a number of crews which normally would have sailed through to the first round had to fight it out for the honor this afternoon.
The Stewards tend to take a "if in doubt, make them qualify approach" and as a result, the popular events saw tough competition for places. Even the higher level small boat events had more crews fighting it out for places than usual.
The "easiest" qualifying race was for the Thames Cup, with entries down from 40 in 2009 to 35 this year, a mere 6 crews were competing for 3 places. On the other end of the extreme, the Fawley Challenge cup for junior quads had 43 crews going for 10 places.
Henley can turn into an expensive error of judgement for crews coming from overseas, if they've over estimated their level of competitiveness, and today was no exception.
The Norwegian contingent, if the form of Norges Handelshoyskoles Roklub in the Temple, yet again failed to progress to day one, something that's turning into a bit of a tradition for them, but they were not alone.
The Green Lake Women's crews in the Remenham and the Princess Grace, were both the slowest non-qualifiers in their event, but at least they've already had the chance to race at Henley Women's regatta.
In the Prince Albert, Salisbury school and Kent School, USA failed to progress, while Yale and Grand Valley State University passed their first test and University of Southern California also made it through in the Temple.
The fun starts again in earnest on Wednesday. We can't wait.
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06/30/2010 9:04:34 AM