PHILIPPA Turner reco-rded her 50th result at the annual Worcester Junior and Veterans Regatta.

Together with her regular partner Fern Cotterill, this Wycliffe crew have dominated Women's Junior 15 all season, coming second only once to Henley at the National Schools Regatta in June and winning a Silver medal into the process.

Entries at Worcester were extremely large in most junior events and particularly in the 15/16-year-old groups.

This particular section of the rowing fraternity was the most affected and influenced by the Redgrave factor and that shows in the dedication and competiveness of these children.

The Wycliffe crew were now in the J16 category for the first time and, over a short 500m course, many of the other 12 crews felt they had a good chance to defeat the champions who had been trained to race over 2000m distances.

These sprints are great to watch and the crowd really got behind their favourites being able to watch the entire race over the shortened distance.

The Thames Valley clubs entered in force as did the regular local teams and this was going to be fast and exciting.

Wycliffe despatched Walling-ford in the first round despite not sculling well but more was needed to win this large competition.

Avon Valley managed to hold Wycliffe to 200m but couldn't live with the pace to the finish.

Stratford's pair were renowned for their sprinting abilities but Wycliffe matched them for around 150m before spurting into the lead.

They the relaxed with 100 m to go as Stratford went for broke before the Wickhamford girl upped the stroke rate to win.

The favourites now faced Maidenhead in the final when Philippa and Fern took it away from the start, sculling beautifully and not offering Maid-enhead any encouragement and the Wycliffe crew prevailed by two lengths.