Tees Head 2022

On the 8^th October, ASRA journeyed South to the River Tees in the North of England for the club’s first Head of the River Races of the season. A group of our more experienced athletes competed over a 5km stretch on a tricky winding course in both the Long Distance Sculls in the morning and Tees Head of the River in the afternoon.

In the Tees Long Distance Sculls,  the J17 and 18s competed in single sculls with several athletes coming away with the win in their categories. On the girls’ side Freya Hughson put in an impressive performance in her Band 2 WJ18 1x to take the gold, beating every single other junior and senior women’s sculler across the division.  Penny Irvine picked herself up a gold medal in the single in Band 2 WJ17 1x and Gabrielle Topp and Lily Arthur also brilliantly raced their way to gold in their WJ15 2x class. The boys were not to be outdone, however, and put in some equally impressive performances in the morning. Most notably, Magnus Heidenreich raced his way to winning Band 1 OJ17 1x, coming in as the quickest Junior sculler of the day and only 1.9 seconds behind the winning open Senior sculler. Sam Docherty and Harris Pearce also put in impressive rows to win gold medals in Band 1 OJ18 1x and Band 2 OJ17 1x respectively.

In the afternoon at the Tees Small Boats Head of the River, the boys once again pulled it out of the bag. Harris Pearce, Sam Docherty, Magnus Heidenreich and Murray Bone, coxed by Samuel Cordiner won the Open 4+, coming in quicker than every senior coxless four in the division as well as coxed. The older girls were also out in coxed fours, this time in matched fours in an all-ASRA event. Freya Hughson, Penny Irvine, Ella Johnson, and Anna Donald, coxed by Lily Arthur won WJ18 4+ ahead of the other two ASRA fours competing in the division. Notable mentions from Division 2 at the Small Boats Head are Lottie Meakins and Iain Petty who both raced the whole 5km in their J14 single sculls and unfortunately had no competition come out against either of them.  Well done to everyone who competed across the whole day, a really good showing from ASRA across all of the boats!