Chronicle Summer 2023

56 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

The girls’ 4+ Lucy Evans, Evie Gowen, Julia Simmonds, Sianna Featherstone and Louisa Molloy, and coach Natasha Townsend with Jo Shindler, Bee Heller, Ruth Tebbot, Mima Boardman and Katharine Tuckett

sprint and gave Shiplake the upper hand. The VIII finished 4th, just half a second off 3rd and 2.6 seconds off gold. On Sunday, the boys’ 1st VIII contested the headline event, the Championship Eights. After winning their semi-final and with the fastest time, they were rewarded with one of the two good lanes, with the other going to St Paul’s, the winners of the second semi-final. In a thrilling race, the Teddies VIII led from the start and by the 1000m had pushed out to nearly a length, which they extended to clear water with 750m to go. The win went to Teddies by 2.41 seconds, ending a 30-year wait to get their hands back on the Queen Mother Challenge Cup. Their win not only celebrates the first for Teddies in the Eights since 1993, but the first for a co-educational school in the last thirty-years; all-boys’ schools such as St Paul’s and Eton (who took silver and bronze behind Teddies this year) have been at the top over the last three decades, so this was a wonderful achievement in our co-educational anniversary year. Also racing on Sunday, the senior girls’ quadruple scull secured a place in the A Final

– a first for Teddies in this event. Throughout the race, they battled between 4th and 7th place, eventually finishing 6th, an excellent result given the standard of the event. Head of Rowing, Adam Moffatt, said, ‘This is very much a team effort and I am extremely proud of everyone involved with SESBC. It’s a great moment for the School and especially the boys and girls in the winning crews who will remember this for many years!’ Victory at Henley At Henley Royal Regatta, the St Edward’s School boys’ 1st VIII won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup for the fifth time since its inception in 1946, beating St Paul’s School in a tense final by the small margin of one third of a length. Teddies first won the event in 1958 and more recently in 1999. St Edward’s is one of only two co educational schools to have taken the title since 1999, breaking the dominance of the event in recent years by St Paul’s and Eton, whom the Teddies crew beat convincingly in the quarter-final. In the history of this event

only these two schools have won it more times than St Edward’s. With all overseas crews out of the picture, Teddies had their close rivals, Radley College, to overcome in the semi-final. Conditions at the six-day regatta were extremely challenging with variable stream and blustery crosswinds but they were handled with supreme confidence by the crew’s 15-year-old cox, Felix Jamieson. Adam Moffatt, Head of Rowing for the past five years, has been building the Boat Club for this pinnacle, supporting the 1st VIII Coach, Jonny Singfield, who has now coached Teddies boys’ crews to contest three of the last 10 finals. Demonstrating just how far girls’ rowing has come at St Edward’s, the School was represented by two girls’ quadruple sculls in the Diamond Jubilee event. Unfortunately our A and B crews were drawn against one another in the first round before the A crew went out to the US National Champions from Oregon after a close and thrilling race.

A full report on Henley Regatta and the rest of the Summer Term’s sport will follow in eNews in the autumn.