British Rowing Championships 2025 Race Report

Racing began on Friday with Men’s club 1x, Women’s club 1x, Women’s beginner 4+ and Men’s beginner 2x. Charlie and Henry performed brilliantly in their singles, with Henry racing up a category as a beginner and Charlie achieving 4th in D final. Louise stormed through her time trial and semi but unfortunately just missed out on a medal, coming 4th in A final. The beg women (and Bedford) came back to training just last week but this didn’t stop them. They took the course, landing a fantastic silver medal in the 4+, only beaten by Oxford University. Finn and Con lead the pack from the beginning, achieving gold with an amazing 15 second lead on the next boat. These boys set a new record for the event and bagged the first title for UOLBC!

Saturday saw the Men’s club 4x, Women’s beginner 2x, and a hell of a lot of rain. With the majority of the boat racing up a category again, the boys had some serious competition in the 4x. Despite this, they finished 4th in the B final, an incredible shift. After paddling together only once before, Katie and Ilka won their heat and were through to the final, winning a brilliant silver medal - only beaten by a certain other crew… Emily and Jess won their respective heat and were undeterred when they met their fellow gryphons in the final. It was a fantastic race but these girls stormed through the finish with a 6 second lead, bagging the second title of the Championships for UOLBC.

Sunday, and the rain just kept coming (but so did the medals). The two Men’s club 2x put in a great shift, with both qualifying for a final and Con and Charlie achieving 3rd in the C final. Louise raced a Women’s Championship 2x with Emily baker of LRC and brought home a bronze - an amazing achievement in a stacked event. The three beginner women raced their singles and consistently came top 5 in the time trial and semi finals so it was all eyes on Leeds heading into the final. They raced brilliantly, in spite of their wet handles. Katie came 5th, Emily came 4th, but storming through to a bronze medal was Jess. A fantastic end to their beginner year.

Congratulations to all who competed and thank you to all those who volunteered or helped in any way at the weekend. In particular we’d like to congratulate LRC for their incredible success, achieving 4th in the Victor Ludorum standings and absolutely smashing their racing all round. A massive thank you to Matt.M for your continued hard work in training the pda athletes and for putting up with them for so many months. 

We put Leeds well on the map this weekend - up the north