Crews star in town regatta (From Worcester News)

Crews star in town regatta

6:00pm Tuesday 28th July 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

A TEAM of eight Bewdley men with just six weeks of formal training won the novice prize at Bewdley Regatta.

Around 540 boats and hundreds of spectators made for one of the town’s biggest rowing festivals.

Andrew Hewitt, James Martyn-Smith, David Bedford, Carl Smith, Drew Gittins, Frazer Price, Josh Skelding and Aston Carter beat Reading in the semi-final and Loughborough in the final to win their novice pots.

They competed in the Pub and Club event as recently as May.

To celebrate, they threw trainer, club captain Craig Robinson, into the river Severn.

Their run of success continued the following day with victory over Reading in their first heat of the intermediate three eights before losing to Warwick in the semis.

Club president Chris Hart took a dip in the Severn after the crew he trained won their novice section.

John Purcell, Tim Lazenby, Paul Jones and Dave Bennett, coxed by Lazenby’s daughter Zoanne, beat Worcester in the final of the open veteran novice coxed fours.

London 2012 Olympics hopeful Steve Price, rowing for Reading, returned to his home town to win the open intermediate three sculls.

The open elite eights race was won by Worcester after fellow finalists London Rowing Club were disqualified for having an ineligible rower.

There were celebrations for Bewdley’s intermediate three eights, who added to their recent win at Llandaff with solid victories over Stourport in the semi-final and Warwick in the final.

Ali Macrae Gammond, coxing at her first regatta, steered her women’s intermediate three coxed four to victory. A Bewdley veterans eight, coxed by Felicity Gunn, beat a composite crew of rowers from Ironbridge, Llandaff, Ross and Bristol.

The Bewdley crew will now begin training for the World Veterans Championships in Vienna in September.

There were numerous wins for Stourport Rowing Club’s scullers.

They had triumphs in the open intermediate one eights, the women’s senior coxed fours, the open veteran ‘C’ coxed fours, the girls’ junior 14 coxed quads, the open interim three coxless quads, the open veteran ‘C’ coxed fours and the open junior 13 coxed quads.

There were other Worcester wins in the women’s intermediate three eights, the open intermediate three coxed fours and the open intermediate three sculls.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)