Updated: Results of the Wingfield Sculls

It was the 170th Wingfield Sculls race in the event’s 180 year history. Three men, Alan Campbell (Tideway Scullers), Marcus Bateman (Leander) and Brendan Crean (Agecroft), fancied their chances and entered. Campbell is GB’s top sculler and had won the Wingfield’s twice before, in 2006 and 2009. Bateman and Crean were both newcomers to the event, Bateman being the new GB successful double scull’s partner of Matthew Wells, the Wingfield’s winner in 2004 and 2005.  Crean has been the busy eighth man in the 2010 GB sculling team.

And the women? Four entered. Champion in 2008 and 2009, successful GB lightweight Sophie Hosking (London) was after a hat trick. Anna Watkins (Leander) and Beth Rodford(Gloucester) had experienced a  great international year in GB’s quad, and Ro Bradbury( Leander), had shown form in spite of final exams at Cambridge.

As to the races. Well, Campbell produced his usual blistering start, chased by Bateman, and was three lengths up at the Mile with Crean a similar distance behind Bateman. Conditions were atrocious from St Paul’s to the Bandstand, and Tideway Sculler Campbell showed his worth, as he did again after Barnes Bridge when things again got worse. Remarkably he always kept his strike rate above his opponents, even as he approached the finish with a sprint at 42 just to prove his point, and won by nearly a minute.
Anna Watkins and Beth Rodford finished first and second in the Women’s Race. Watkins hit the pace from the start to counteract lightweight Hosking and beat the record to the Mile and Hammersmith Bridge to make her point. Rodford and Hosking were also within the record at Hammersmith Bridge, but Watkins looked smooth, and, although her crew-mate in the quad, Rodford, continued to pressure, it was Watkins’s Wingfields.

RESULTS Women’s Wingfields

1st Anna Watkins (Leander)            23.07
2nd Beth Rodford (Gloucester)         23.12
3rd Sophie Hosking (London)           23.44
4th Ro Bradbury (Leander)    24.25

Umpire Rory Henderson (Champion 1990)
Aligner Phil Bourguignon (London)

Record times
Mile Post           4.52    E.Laverick 2007
Hammersmith     8.39    E.Laverick 2007
Chiswick Bridge  13.30    E.Laverick 2007
Barnes Bridge    18.11    E.Laverick 2007
Finish                21.53    E.Laverick 2007

RESULTS Wingfields

1st Alan Campbell (Tideway Scullers’ School) 22.34
2nd Marcus Bateman (Leander) 23.25
3rd Brendan Crean (Agecroft) 24.12

Umpire Rory Henderson (Champion 1990)
Aligner Phil Rowley(TSS)

Record times
Mile post          4.12   M.W.Wells 2005
Hammersmith   7.32   M.W.Wells 2005
Chiswick Steps  12.21  R.Henderson 1990
Barnes Bridge   16.45  I.J.Lawson 2003
Finish              19.58  P.M.Haining 1994