UL oarsman Nathaniel Reilly-O'Donnell took a bronze medal in the Great Britain M8+ in the World Rowing U23 Championships in Racice, Czech Republic on July 26, while UL oarswomen Olivia Oakes, racing in the GB W4-, came 5th.
Racing alongside Kieren Emery, Chris Abraham, Tom Clark, Ben Duggan, Dan Ritchie, Anthony Locke, Matt Rossiter and cox Henry Fieldman, Nathaniel raced to third place behind Poland and Germany in a time of 5:35:2.
In the W4-, Olivia Oakes' crew of Atlanta St John, Jenny Arnold and former UL athlete Ruth Walczak came fifth in the final behind Belarus, Italy, New Zealand and France.
Nathaniel reports: "For the third year running i was selected for the GB U23 8+. My first year we came a disappointing 6th, having been in with a real chance of a good medal; last year we came 5th, which was probably a fair representation of the crew. This year we knew early on we had a pretty quick crew; 4 Junior World Gold medallists, 6 Henley winners and all bar one had been to a World Champs before.
Our heat was more of a blood and guts row rather than a technical showcase. In quite changable conditions i felt we were caught out with a sudden burst of heat and probably the highest humidity i had ever experienced. Nerves were settled and we focused on the final. The mood within the boat was fantastic, total aggression but unified with a common purpose. Twice we mowed down the German 8 while paddling, so much so their coach threw a wobbler.
Our pre-paddle and warm up for the final was good, the humidity much lower and our confidence high. We executed the final how we wanted, getting the boat upto speed hard and fast and setting a pace we knew most people would struggle with. In the last 750m the Polish pushed the pace on, we didnt have enough to match and they inched into the lead. This led to a tit-for-tat battle between us and the Germans for the silver medal, sadly we lost out - 2.5 seconds behind the Polish, 1 second behind ze Germans. We left the course pleased we had done what we had set out to do, but slightly frustrated we didnt come home with the medal that really matters.
My summer has not quite started yet though. I am writing from the banks of Lake Silvretta (Austria), part of the senior men's team on their altitude camp. The air is thin, the food is great and the women are elderly; two out of three aint too bad."
Olivia reports: "With a tough start to the training camp due to injury we had reduced time training in our boat. Having to make the most out of every training session we could get, we didn't have the smoothest of run ups to the Championships with some ups and downs in training. Then we decided to make a radical change to the order of the boat and just under a week before the championships we put a bucket rig in the boat. This gave us a new lease of life! This brought the crew together and we improved rapidly everyday up until the heats of the Worlds.
Noddy didn't have the best run up either in the early stages of camp coming down with flu which resulted in him being sent home to recuperate before rejoining the crew a few days later.
Travelling out to the Czech Republic was an experience coming into a rural town to say the least!
The heats were an unknown quantity as we had few training pieces under our belts. The race was interesting, we were dropped a little from the start then came through the pack to win the heat, sending us straight to the final.
The final was very tough in which the order chopped and changed through out the race. We were placed 5th across the line which was a disappointment.
Noddy had a very exciting race in which they were racing with Poland and Germany for contention of the medals. They gained a very creditable bronze medal."
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