A CREW from Worcester Rowing Club have been hailed as an “inspiration” after winning at the prestigious Henley Women’s Regatta.

Catherine Jackson, Elly Foulds, Amy Gibson, Fay Sheppard and cox Molly Elkins came from behind to win the intermediate club coxed four race.

Coach Aidan Melarkey said he was left “speechless” by what the girls achieved as it was the first title Worcester had claimed at the regatta in more than a decade.

“I’m unbelievably proud,” said Melarkey, who has been working with them for the past four months.

“I admire their attitude, dedication and self-belief. They entered with the belief they were not coming home without a medal, so they dug deep, fought hard and made it happen. They are very deserving winners.

“For a regional club outside the Thames like ours, we don’t win this every day. The last time we won at HWR was 2004.

“Crews like this don’t come along every year, these girls are a real inspiration to the club.

“Some of these girls have rowed HWR before, were past finalists with other crews and had unfinished business.

“This shows some of our members this is what you can achieve when you work hard enough and stay focused.”

After 26 crews, the most in the regatta’s history, were reduced to 16 by a time trial, Worcester began their title tilt with a one-and-three-quarter length victory over Leeds RC.

This was followed by wins against Mortlake Anglian and Alpha BC and Upper Thames RC before taking on Wallingford in the final.

“We always knew this would be a difficult race as Wallingford had already collected several HWR medals from previous years,” Melarkey said.

“We took a marginal lead in the first 300 metres but they came back at us and stretched out to almost a one-length lead through the halfway point.

“It takes a lot of mental strength to not lose your rhythm when you are that far down in a final.

“By the 500m-to-go point, the girls thought, ‘It’s now or never’, and dug deep to push past them and win by one length.”

Melarkey added: “I was pretty confident we would do well as we had picked up a win at two multi-lane events at Dorney Lake in the women’s elite club coxed fours at Wallingford Regatta in early May and won in the women’s IM1 coxed fours at Metropolitan Regatta in early June.

“This was a good indication they were one of the fastest going in the event but two crews going side-by-side is a very different race as anything can happen.”

There was also a fine display by the University of Worcester at Henley as their team reached the semi-finals of the intermediate academic coxed fours.

The students’ crew will now join forces with Worcester Rowing Club’s winning coxed four to make a composite eight for qualifying for Henley Royal Regatta today in the Remenham Challenge Cup.