Thames RC win two silvers in Ghent‏

Eight men, a cox and a coach travelled to a cold, wet and windy Ghent. On Saturday they won a silver in the coxed four behind UTRC and finished a promising fourth in the eights final - not bad given the lane and doubling up (the only crew in the final to have done so) However there was plenty to work on….

So, with this in mind and a new plan in place, on Sunday, with only one boat to focus on, the eight decided to row like complete cretins and were led by the entire field in the heat. At some point they realised this wasn’t quite the plan and put the foot down for twenty strokes, which put them in the lead.

The final saw a much more focused crew and in a healthy cross tail wind (straighter but not as strong as the night before) the crew took the race by the scruff of the neck. They led for the first 1500m and though Brookes managed to sneak in front in the last 500, they held off repeated challenges from Leander’s Ladies Plate crew to win a much deserved and well earned silver medal. A great end to hard weekends racing with many lessons learned.