Just thought I’d write a quick update of how I am doing in the pair in Singapore. Three heats had Australia, Greece and Great Britain coming out top. Todays Semifinal had us lined up against the junior world champion pair from Czech Republic, as well as Turkey, Croatia, India, Spain. After leading the pack for the first hundred metres or so the well-drilled Greek pair pulled through and beat us to the line by a second or two.

Results can be seen here

Tomorrow at midday (local time), 5am UK time, is the final. It’s a whole new ball game and I’m looking forward to another shot at the Greeks. Medalling in Olympic final (yes it is youth I know!) would be incredible.

An article about today’s racing

Here are highlights from the first day

I’m excited for tomorrow. The final. And going to McDonalds straight after.

It’s been a busy month so far. After a few weeks training in Chester and Reading the Junior GB Rowing team made it’s way to Czech Republic for the Junior World Rowing Championships. After winning our respective heat, in a time 4 seconds slower than the other one, we were set for the final on Saturday knowing we could step up our game and have a shot at the very strong Romanian crew for a gold medal. It wasn’t our time, and although dominating the rest of the field, the Romanians were too strong for us and we finished in Silver medal position. This is a medal I am proud of though. I can hold my head up and say that I, and the other three guys in the boat, couldn’t have done anything more to go quicker in that race and we were fairly beaten by a better crew. This is much better than coming off with a silver thinking, or knowing, there was some way you could have won gold.

Photos of this event are here: Junior World Rowing Championships

The flight back from Prague landed at around 3.30pm, and our 12 hour flight to Singapore was at 10pm. It was going to be a long day. In the time in-between we were taken to a very accomadating Holiday Inn in which we were kitted out with a huge bag of Adidas clothing. The flight was… long, but luckily I had another Asda athlete to talk to, Freya Jones.

Now I am on the bus to the rowing venue. It is the most amazing country and there is such an energy going around at the moment. The opening ceremony is on Saturday night and my first race is on Sunday. Bring on the racing!

I would just quickly like to mention how JAMMY my mother is. She is coming out to support not just me but Team GB as a whole and has been chosen as one of the three GB mothers on the Proctor and Gamble programme ‘thank you mom’! For a few interviews she has been given a sum of money to help with flight and hotel costs! Thanks mum!

1)       How did you find out you were selected for the Youth Olympics?

In early May, there was a pairs regatta held at Dorney lake for all the GB junior pairs invited. It was a known fact that winning it was likely to earn you a place to Singapore with Team GB. After winning the event (making us the fastest junior pair in the country) we were told we were the chosen male rowers for the Youth Olympic Games in August.

2)       Do you have any preparations planned before the Youth Olympics such as intensive training schedules or fitness camps?

I wish we did have some time in our pair to train beforehand but we won’t as the day we fly out to Singapore is the day we return from the Junior World Chamionships in Czech Republic. We are in the top boat, which is a coxless four, so have no time to train in a pair.

3)       How do you feel about representing GB in the first ever Youth Olympics? *

Hopefully Ed, my pairs partner, will come along as otherwise I’ll have a bit of a hard time rowing a pair! I also have support from some family members which is always appreciated!   *6)       What would it mean to you to medal or win the Gold medal and write your name in the history books?

If that were to happen it would only be the beginning. It would fuel my hunger to win a gold at the (actual!) Olympic Games. 

7)       What is the best piece of advice that you will be taking to the Olympics?

It’s just another race. You can’t let yourself get hyped up with all the surroundings or you will have lost the race before you reach the start line. A saw an article in the newspaper written by an Olympic cycling coach saying that the problem with the engand football team is that they were ‘emotionally hijacked’ – I won’t let that happen. 

8)       After the Youth Olympics, what are the next steps?

I am off to university in the states the day I get back from Singapore. Four years later who knows what will happen, yesterdays history, tomorrows a mystery.

9)       Would you be happy for Asda’s PR agency to contact you about your sport in the future?

Of course. I am very grateful for the support Asda has given me, £500 can go far if you spend it wisely!

Since my last post I have had three major events – Duisberg Regatta (in Germany again, the equivalent to the Munich Regatta but for Under23 rather than Under18), National Schools Regatta (in Nottingham, what a lovely place!) and having a serious fever.

Duisberg was a great experience. Back in my school boat rather than the GB one we decided we would see how we faired against Under 23 national VIII’s. There were country’s represented from all around the world – exciting stuff for a bunch of 17/18 year old schoolboys! The racing was over two days, and on the Saturday we finished 7 seconds behind the Poles who are the reigning U23 world Champions and a length behind the French U23 VIII. We still had that sense of “oh, we didn’t win” but then I think we realised that the guys we were racing were really quite good!

My coaches’ round up of the sunday was as follows:

“An excellent heat saw The VIII row through a German composite and keep the French behind them the whole way. The final was, in my opinion, The VIII’s best race to date. Leading the French until the final stages, and within touch of the Netherlands, the race profile was excellent. Cycling next to the French coach, whilst shouting for Eton, the Frenchman was shouting at his crew. My French is not what it used to be, but I got the gist of what he was saying. Much of it is not recountable here. Pleased with the results – yes. Proud of the crew – definitely. Excited for NSR – yes”

So a successful weekend and great experience for us all. The following day is when it hit me, I felt a little ‘iffy’ and thought I’d take one day off. That didn’t help and when the temperatures, shivering and hyperventilating started that is when it was evident there was something wrong. My batteries were flat. I spent a week and a half of the crucial two week period before National Schools Regatta bedbound, taking exams in the school San and not doing much else than sleeping. I won’t give much detail as it may make you queezy but in the end I lost 8 kilos, more than a stone, of muscle mass in about 2 or 3 days. I have gained 3 back by now.

National Schools was always going to be tough with only two sessions in our boat for the past two weeks, and it was! With people expecting us to walk it, we ended up winning by only 4 seconds to a very strong Radley crew. 4 seconds is still a large margin but not enough to make any of us happy!

The next campaign is to Henley Royal Regatta starting in the last few days of June. This is the third and final event that makes winning “The Triple” such a prestigious happening. Both Radley and Shrewsbury will have taken huge amounts of motivation from being so close to us at the Nationals and I look forward to racing them, and the foreign crews who decide to make the trip, in a few weeks time.

It’s been a while so I thought a big update was needed! In the past few weeks I’ve been busy with some pretty intense training as well as certain regattas. The pairs regatta was the first and very important if I was to be selected as one of the two male rowers going to this years Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. Although it all seems a bit of a haze now, as so much has happened since, my pairs partner (Ed Nainby-Luxmoore) and I won this event making us the fastest Junior pair in the country – yippee! After the race we were informed by David Tanner (Head of Great Britain Rowing) that we had been selected as the pair to go to the Youth Olympic Games this August – another yippee!

As well as competing with my school over the past week or two, I also had an international regatta in Munich, Germany last weekend. On the Saturday I raced in the top coxless four (in the stroke seat) and we won our event by a rather close margin – 0.38 seconds! Sitting in 5th (out of 6) after the first 500 metres, then 4th at the 1000m (halfway) and 3rd at the 1500m we had to pull something out the bag if we wanted to win this, and we did! Over a race of around six and a half minutes, less than half a second is quite a fine margin! The sunday was a different affair all together. I was put in the pair with Ed, again as the top boat GB had to offer and in our race we were winning by the first stroke, and had a margin of 14 seconds at the end (quite a comfy cushion!). Sadly the boats in the other pairs race had a very close race, having four pairs finishing within 3 seconds of eachother, just pipping us to the post on time. If only they had done a semi and then a final, I am confident we would have beaten the others. France and Azerbaijan were the two strongest pairs I think so they are ones we will be targeting next time.

So there it is. All (or most) of my happenings in the last few weeks, ending up in my planned summer holidays being a meagre 4 days in total off rowing! Bring on the Junior World Championships and the Youth Olympics! Tomorrow I’m back off to Germany to race some U23 international crews, meaning I’m missing even more school! God only hopes I pass my exams when it comes to the summer!

Cheerio!

In the last few weeks my sports calendar has been very full. Firstly, the ASDA workshop at the Lords cricket ground in London was a great day in which I picked up many tips from world-class journalists, as well as hearing Danny Crates story to success – what a great man. I am very appreciative of the sportsaid package I recieved on behalf of ASDA Sporting Chance. The money they gave me will be very useful for a sport that is expensive to keep doing.

On a similar note of success, the GB rowing assesment held in Nottingham went really well. What is normally a grueling 4 days of continuous racing in boats of all different types was quite an easy ride for me. After finishing top on the first day, accompanied with a silver medal from last years Junior World Championships, the head coach had seen enough to select me into the team that will race in Munich in a few weeks time. The following days consisted of paddling with my pairs partner, Ed Nainby-Luxmoore, in preparation for the next set of trials held at Dorney Lake – the Olympic Venue. Winning this Regatta at Dorney could see us with a selection to this years Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. On Thursday I leave to Portugal for an 8 day intense training camp.

On Thursday, I took place in the Schools Head of the River, the biggest Head (timetrial) race of the season. Starting first, in front of 300 other boats of schools all over the country was a daunting fact of the race, but not retaining our Headship of the river was out of the question.

The race felt great, and went to plan perfectly. The race is held from Chiswick to Putney in London and is around 7 kilometres long, we finished in a time of 17.22, a decent 25 seconds ahead of any other crew on the river. A great result, another medal, and the relief of not having to row again on that stretch of water for a very long time!

On Sunday evening I returned from the Long Distance Trials held on a canal at Boston, Lincolnshire. There were two days of racing in pairs, one 5 kilometer race on each day. On the Saturday I won the trials in a pair with Rowan Lawson, the strokeman from our school eight, although I was stroking the pair in this instance. This was a great result, and has really helped put both of our names into the heads of the selectors.

On the Sunday I rowed with Callum McBriety, someone I had only previously rowed with once, and we came second. Although this is a result that most should be beaming about we were both disappointed we counldn’t have found the 4 second margin over the 18 minute course to win it. All in all it was a very successful weekend for me and I have put myself in the picture early for selection.