Last updated at 10:03, Friday, 19 June 2009

Durham Regatta, often referred to as ‘The Henley of the North’, proved a happy hunting ground for Hexham Queen Elizabeth High School rowers.

On a scorching hot day ,the crowd of thousands were treated to superb racing with crews from as far away as Bath, Hampton, Chester, Warrington and even Holland and the Czech Republic.

Nicole Lamb, Kate Hastie, Steph Charlton and their cox Gemma Mills are better known for their sculling (two blades each) successes, but when Gina Lamb joined the club in May, they decided to turn their hand to rowing (one blade each).

The objective of the four was to win Women’s Novice Fours at Durham Regatta.

This event is always highly contested by all the university crews and the trophy for winning the event is impressive.

There were 29 competing crews split into two divisions.

The girls’ first race was at 8.45am on Saturday.

The morning did not get off to a good start when the fully laden trailer had a puncture.

This delayed arrival at Durham so there was not a lot of pre-race preparation time.

Nevertheless, the girls took the lead off the start and settled into a good strong rhythm, to win the race comfortably.

As they crossed the finish line the steering cable snapped so they wandered back to the start for a quick repair before their next round.

This was won easily but the semi-final was more of a challenge.

In the final they came up against a strong looking crew from Grey’s College, Durham.

These university women were not going to give in to a group of youngsters without a fight and hung on to the QE girls for more than half the course.

However, a final push took QEHS girls to victory.

The U16 boys’ coxed four of Matthew Mole, Charlie Dickinson, Michael Ronan, Joe Brinton and cox Avram Benjamin have had considerable success at local and national level.

Recently though, the boat has not been going well,because of interrupted training due to the pressures of exams.

In the recent National School’s Regatta the boys entered an alternative event rather than the U16 coxed four, and were surprised when a crew from Yarm School won the gold medal.

Durham Regatta would be the first time they would meet Yarm since then and they needed to win. Pride was at stake!

Their semi against Chester-le-Street was won by a distance, but then it was Yarm in the final.

Off the start it was obvious that a close race would follow as the two crews stayed level with every stroke.

The commentator got excited as both crews were level as they went under Baths Bridge and approached the finish line side by side.

He went silent as he could not decide who had won.

It seemed like an age but was probably only a few minutes before the finish marshal declared QEHS to be the winners.

To further highlight QEHS’s dominance at J16 level, Nicole Lamb won the women’s U16 single scull event.

Sixteen-year-old Daniel Teasdale stepped up in age category to join David Dodds in the U18 double sculls.

They fought their way through the preliminary rounds to the final where they went off course, clashing blades with a crew parked in the side.

This allowed the York City double to row through to win.

Dan also paired up with Michael Ronan for the U16 double sculls where they again got through to the final to be beaten by two extremely talented scullers from Talkin Tarn.

The U14 boys’ quad of Harry Forster, Daniel Humble, Jon Mitchell, Elliott Mitchell and cox Laura Mills are enjoying their first season of competitive rowing and in events so far have been beaten by a crew from Yarm School.

However, this was to be their day and they rowed an excellent race to beat Yarm in the semi final.

Their delight was short lived as despite their spirited performance in the final they were narrowly defeated by Bradford Grammar School.

Pictured are the women’s coxed four and the under 16 coxed four with their trophies.

First published at 09:44, Friday, 19 June 2009
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk