21st August 2002
PRESS
RELEASE
BRONZE FOR GB JUNIOR ROWERS
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York City Rowing Club Junior Sculler Caroline Jones
took part in the Coupe De La Jeunesse at Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal on the new
2000m Olympic standard rowing course. This is an annual 10 nation Junior
European Championship event with two separate one day regattas. Jones was
selected for the Great Britain quadruple scull, which performed well at the GB
National Championships 2 weeks earlier wining a bronze medal against domestic
adult competition. In the Saturday Regatta at the Coupe the crew cruised through
their heat in second place to qualify comfortably for the 'A' final. In the
afternoon a welcome cooling wind came up, although this made steering more
difficult and made times in the finals some 30 seconds slower than in the heats.
Jones who was steering the boat and sculling at the number 2 position used her
steering skills gained while steering boats at York to steer a good course. The
GB quad went into an early lead in the final, and were nearly a boats length
ahead of the field after 500 metres. By half way the strong Italian crew moved
into the lead and in the last quarter of the race the Spanish boat crept into
second position. The British quad put in a big effort towards the finish to
maintain bronze medal position. They finished in 7 minutes 35 seconds, 6 seconds
ahead of the Portuguese who were in 4th place. With a remarkable degree of
consistency Sundays final was an almost identical re run of Saturdays, with the
medals going to the same 3 crews and France coming fourth. The crew and coaches
were pleased with their achievement in gaining two bronze medals against top
European competition as they had only one month training together following
selection. Most continental crews are selected much earlier, giving them more
time to prepare as a crew. The British girls team performed exceptionally with
all 16 members winning at least 1 medal over the 2 days. This made them the top
girls team. With the boys team coming third, GB were second overall to Italy who
won the team trophy.
