2nd July 1999

St Edward's slay another giant, and Searle makes good start

For the third day the school crews provided the fireworks when St Edward's continued their giant-killing run by removing Radley, from behind and by three feet, from the Princess Elizabeth. St Peter's College Australia's removal of the Americans from St Joseph's Academy leaves Abingdon, who beat Southport School Australia, the only survivor from six selected crews. St Edward's meet Abingdon today [sat] and St Peter's meet St Paul's.

The Ladies' Plate had a lively start when Cambridge and Queen's Tower trailed the German under-23 crew by a length before storming through at the end to win by two thirds of a length. Cambridge meet the Canadian lightweights today. The University of California Berkeley meet the British lightweight eight today after beating London and Mainz.

Greg Searle had an easy win over the Australian Markus Free in the Diamond Sculls today to put himself into a semi-final against the German Marcel Hacker. Hacker, from Magdeburg, was junior world champion in 1986 and his latest achievement was to finish fourth in the first round of the World Cup. Searle has copped the worst half of this draw, but yesterday's victory has proved to him that he can race in the way that his training leads him to expect after a winter of illness and a spring of poor competition.

The holder and 1997 world champion Jamie Koven has an easier semi against Leander's Richard Briscoe, who qualified unexpectedly yesterday when Aquil Abdullah, Koven's training partner in Boston, broke his foot-stretcher.

Abdullah's Henley was one he'll want to forget. In his first race on Thursday his opponent's stake boat boy held the boat, so Abdullah stopped, and the race was started again. Today the roles were reversed. When Abdullah's foot-stretcher broke at the start, Briscoe declined the umpire's offer to continue, volunteering a re-start. This time the stretcher sheered off, and that was that.

Mark Partridge and Adam Gray of Leander beat the lightweight pairs world champions Jean-Baptiste Dupy and Jean-Christophe Bette of France by two feet in the Goblets after the French pair hit the booms and lost three lengths. The most fancied pairs, Steve Williams and Simon Dennis and the Aussies David Weightman and Rob Scott, survived another day.

The holder Maria Brandin and the other selected sculler Katrin Rutschow progressed to the semis of the Princess Royal. Brandin beat Alison Mowbray and meets Frances Houghton who rowed over after Tegwyn Rooks withdrew. Rutschow beat Debbie Flood and meets the Scot Kirsty McClelland-Brooks who beat the Hungarian Gita Barz of Hungary.

Peter Haining and Laszlo Szogi beat Curran and King of Kingston easily in the Double Sculls.

In the Thames Cup one selected crew failed to make the semis. Oberhausen of Germany, London A and Molesey were successful, but Sydney RC were beaten by the Cambridge old boys, Crabtree.

The Temple was a clean sweep for selcted crews. Oxford Brookes beat Trinity Dublin B, Princeton beat Cherwell, Trinity Dublin beat Trinity Hartford, Cambridge beat St Andrew's Australia, Imperial beat Imperial B, Nereus beat Reading University, Dartmouth beat Newcastle University, and Harvard beat St Joseph's University.

The Stewards' starts tomorrow with a race between Britain's superfour of James Cracknell, Steve Redgrave, Ed Coode and Matthew Pinsent and the Molesey four of Richard Dunn, Graham Smith, Jonny Searle and Jonny Singfield. The winner meets the Danish lightweights on Sunday. The Dames are unbeaten at lightweight level and are world and Olympic champions, and Stewards' finalists last year.

© Copyright Chris Dodd, 1999.