From summer 2006, Sarah Cornick reports:
Tamara Simmons and Sarah Cornick travelled out to Brive in France in September 2006 with the British Universities Team to race at the 2nd European Universities Championships (EUSA). Despite being lightweights, Tamara and Sarah were selected as the openweight Great Britain A pair following their victory at the BUSA regatta in May 2006 in lightweight pairs.
In the heats, the Oxford pair put in a strong performance to finish 3rd. The final on the following day saw the other crews raise their performances and the Oxford pair battled hard to secure 4th place not far off bronze medal position behind Great Britain B, France and Poland. This was a gutsy row against strong openweight opposition.
Despite having to be university students to gain selection for their national teams in Brive, many of the competitors were fresh from racing in their full national squads at either the World or U23 rowing championships. This gave Tamara and Sarah their first taste of international representation at senior level and valuable racing experience in a class field.
EUSA was a fantastic event, in a beautiful setting. The GB team was looked after extremely well under the leadership of Chantelle Hanley from UWE, and after racing had finished, EUSA was a great opportunity to meet and build relationships with rowers from many other universities. Hopefully other rowers from OUWLRC will be able to experience similar representation in future years.
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