1st VIII win boat race!!!

The King Edward VII School 1st VII won the Old Mutual Schools Boat Race on Sunday 5 December 2010 making history as the first KES crew to win the prestigious event. Now in its tenth year, the event attracts the 1st teams from all rowing schools in South Africa.

The Oxford - Cambridge style of race format is somewhat different from the 2km sprints that we are used to. The heats which take place on Saturday are time trials - each crew posting a time against the stopwatch. After this, based on the ranking from these heat times, boats are paired off into finals. In this case, we raced against Bishop Bavin School in the A Final.

This year a very strong incoming tide and near gale force wind in places made the race extremely tactical. Our crew managed to ward of repeated pushes from their opponents to make it a nail biting affair: A mere 5 seconds separating the two crews over 24 minutes of racing - it was incredible!

This is an outstanding result for a crew that has had humble beginnings this season. The crew is relatively small, but make up for that with excellent rhythm and cohesion. The unit has 5 senior opens (Grade 11) who were sitting in the stern, as well as one junior open (Grade 10) and 2 under sixteen athletes. A great deal of credit must go to the Nicholas Tickle who showed tactical insight of a very experienced cox in only in his first season of rowing.

Congratulations!

A picture album will follow shortly... Click on the albums to the right of this blog

Belated Gauteng Champs Results...

The weekend of 31st October/1st November saw the staging of the Gauteng Championships Regatta, which was also a celebration of the 50th year of rowing at King Edward VII School.

Results were as follows:
In open eights our 1st eight won convincingly. The 2nd eight placed 5th ahead of all other school 2nd crews and the 3rd eight placed 13th overall. In the other premier boy’s event, the coxed four, King Edwards claimed Gold by just over a length. Our 2nd four won the B final, leaving them in a commendable 9th position overall.

In U16, the “A” four achieved 6th position and McNeill placed 7th in the singles event, his best result so far this year.The U16 double also placed 8th.

In U15 the performance was a little down on the season so far.The Octopul was 4th, just off a medal. Patrick Colbourne managed the “A” Final in the single this week and ended 8th. The quad brought home the Bronze medal, as did the Double: both stroked by Miller.

In the new U14 group we placed 6th, 8th, 10th and 11th in the doubles event. Daniel Kelly was a commendable 4th in the singles event and the Octopul also ended just off Bronze, in fourth.

Overall, the club was placed 4th in the points trophy for boy’s schools. Very good to see KES pulling of the Double Gold in 1st four and 1st eight events this week.