THAMES RC | Henley Visitors' Four 2016

A story of Colonials, Magnetic Booms and Zorba the Greek...Made up of an Irishman, Kiwi (Nick Pusinelli), Englishman (Tom Jeffery) and South African (Ant Lester), we were the start of a bad joke. With three of us returning from our Thames Challenge Cup Henley eight, we set a target of competing up another level against the best crews in the world. We knew it was a hard ask. Nick and I had demanding jobs while Ant slaved 65+ hour weeks starting up his recruitment business; leaving only part-time worker Tom able to train twice a day. Our plot was also further complicated by the Henley Stewards announcing a club rule change in December which made two of us eligible to race again in the Thames Challenge Cup. Although we wanted to press on, this left our coaches in a difficult position. Load up an eight to retain the Thames Cup or against the wishes of many rowers in the squad go for an unlikely challenge in the visitors? After much persuasion of our coach Ben Lewis (and bullying of Ant to continue rowing despite his job pressures), we were allowed to test our four on training camp in Seville. When we first got in the boat the stopwatch justified our place: for 2k we clocked 1:40 pace at rate 20 and set a 5:30 2k pace for 250m in our first piece at rate. A week later at Wallingford Regatta we put seven seconds on a Brookes crew containing some very experienced Olympic and multi-Henley winning war horses. So far promising. However, a topsy-turvy month of training followed; disrupted by weddings, illnesses and injury. At the end of May we headed to mainland Europe to race some international quality competition at Holland Bekker. Matters went from precarious to worse; we arrived in Amsterdam coach-less due to a lost passport and 40 minutes before our heat we found out our boat was under-weight. In the desperate hunt to make weight we scavenged broken curb stones from the car park... leaving us only five minutes to get to the start. Despite a dash to the start line we progressed through in the lead, setting up a final against Cambridge University, Nereus, Leander and an all Olympian Dutch Crew with World Championship medals and World Cup racing that season. While we had a gusty row to finish ahead of our competition we were outclassed by the Dutch International four who beat us by five seconds. Little did we know we would face them on the Saturday of Henley four weeks later... For the rest of the story follow this link: http://thamesrc.co.uk/news/henley-royal-regatta-2016/# Tracks: Enya 'Orinoco Flow' & Journey 'Don't Stop Believin' All Henley Regatta video content is copyright of and reproduced on the consent of Henley Royal Regatta. Please subscribe to their channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk5g... "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."