Balmain Rowing Club ended the Edward Trickett NSW Grade Championship Regatta with a 7 medal haul over 2 days of competition last weekend. The regatta concluded the grade racing season and a full trailer made the trip to the Sydney International Regatta Centre for racing over 1000 and 2000 metres.

Steve Knott made it a sweep of the Adaptive events claiming the single scull and later teaming with Ian Craig for another win in the double scull in two head to head races with Nepean. The third win for the club came in the Hanoi Invitational single scull event, conducted at short notice to give racing experience for the visiting Hanoi club from Vietnam. Balmain Captain, Liam James, a former NSW Sprint Champion was in his element, blasting out and moving away to win the 200 metre event in the blistering time of 36.77 seconds.

The Women’s squad, coached by Jeff Paterson, famously had to share a spot on the podium last year with a dead heat for bronze in the D Grade quad scull. This year, they again made the presentation dais in the corresponding event, claiming another bronze with the crew of Hamina Cameron, Michelle Smigielski, Renate Ijpma and Lucy Blakemore.

“The pressure was on to improve on the bronze medal we took home last year. We started well in the heats, qualifying fastest out of all the heats, and were fired up by some motivational words from Jeff before the final,” said Blakemore.

“In some rough conditions, we were leading at the halfway point but there was stiff competition from the St George and Richmond boats. The finish came down to a 2 second difference between the top 3 crews, with the crew in 4th over 9 seconds behind the group. In the end we had to settle for bronze, but were pleased to at least maintain our record from last year.”

Blakemore was also pleased with her races in the Women’s D Grade double scull with Smigielski, where the popular event required heats, semi-finals and a final to decide matters. “Michelle and I had some good rows on Saturday in the double, with a very business-like heat and semi which we completed in almost exactly the same time (4:05), coming second in both races,” said Blakemore.

“We were confident going into the final, but in the end took seventh place in what was a very competitive field. It was great to have 2 Balmain crews in the final, with Cartier Cross and Amber Rose Bailey competing in their first Trickett regatta and qualifying for the final - a great effort from our junior girls' squad.”

Blakemore, Smigielski, Ijpma and Rebecca Riley claimed a silver medal in the D Grade coxed four late on into a moderate headwind in a performance that surprised Blakemore. “The D grade 4+ came with no expectations, being a crew who had been for one training paddle the previous week and had a pretty rocky row up to the start line. We were in great hands with our rower-turned-cox, Anna Bauweraerts, again at the helm, and without a cox box she did a tremendous job of screaming motivation as well as maintaining a good course.”

“During the race, everything suddenly fell into place for us, and we found a form we had struggled to reach in training. Surprised to find ourselves in the top 2, we ended up in a mighty battle with old foes Leichhardt coming into the finish. They pulled ahead, then we pushed and took the lead again, until finally we were pipped to second place by just half a second. Perhaps a bit more training will take us to gold next year!”

The Men’s squad managed their share of the spoils with the crew of Owen Nix, Josh Bray, Liam James and James Waldersee claiming the silver medal in the B Grade quad scull. The Australian Defence Force Academy blasted out of the start moving to clear water by 700 metres, before slowly coming back to the field. Leichhardt made a push just before the halfway mark that the Balmain crew was unable to match and went on to win by 5 seconds.

Waldersee and Bray came away with the bronze medal in the Men’s B Grade pair, placing behind Leichhardt and eventual winners, Brad Smith and Ken Major of Glebe. Bray was pleased with the effort but acknowledged the performance of Glebe.

“We had a great start and were right with the more experienced crews from Leichhardt and Glebe through the 1000 m mark. We cleaned up our technique over the last 500 metres and were very happy to achieve a podium finish. The winning crew Glebe must be given credit for a strong and consistent season,” he said.

The Men’s C Grade eight of Waldersee, Nix, Bray, Chris Nelson, Alistair Inglis, Jesse Guilfoyle, Ian Craig and Alex Bentley, coxed by Sally Arnold, were edged out of the medals in the sprint by Leichhardt, to place fourth. Waldersee was upbeat about the performance of both the C eight and the B eight (where Liam James came in for Jesse Guilfoyle), which placed 5th.

“What I enjoyed most about the weekend was being in crews that felt really polished and well-coordinated,” he said.

“It was pretty clear that this year we had done more work in bigger boats leading into the regatta. The eight is the obvious example of this, but I also noticed the benefit in the B quad and B pair.”

“I think most of us were quite proud to be rowing the eight. For our eight to be at the standard that it was given where it was last year is a big credit to everyone involved, particularly Liam, who really was the driving force behind getting the boat together and moving.”

The remaining four regattas on the NSW calendar for 2010-2011 are Masters regattas for those over 27 years of age, starting with the Drummoyne Masters this weekend on Iron Cove.