Burton Regatta 2010 was held in the meadows where stalls, bouncy castles, refreshments tents and ice-cream vans lined the regatta straight. The weather was beautiful both days and conditions were perfect for the 1100m racing on the Saturday and 750m on the Sunday.

On the Saturday the ladies entered a coxless quad but the opposition Doncaster took it from them early on and extended there lead right. Burton is well known in recent years for excellent mixed events where men and women race together, last year Loughborough entered four mixed Coxed Fours and the winning crew from that event decided to enter the same crew again this year, unfortunately they came up against Leicester’s much younger and fitter junior crew this year who led from the start and took a win by a couple of lengths.

The Men’s Masters Eight a straight final against Doncaster this was a good race to win as you get tankards but no racing points so the crew can race at the same level. The Masters crews are categorised by age and there was a discussion between umpires and crews as to whether an 8 second penalty was to be used with Loughborough as they had a slightly younger crew, but as this was not in the programmed the umpires decided not to enforce it. Loughborough still won with a huge 17-second lead so even with the penalty they would have still taken the boat over the line first. Michael Fiddler trophy sponsored by Molson Coors.

The IM3 Men’s Eight was in the prestigious final race of the day and the crowds lined the bank to watch Loughborough win easily against Stourport for The Bass Challenge Vase sponsored by the local council.

Sunday with the slightly shorter distance brought the ladies quad a victory over Bradford upon Avon. Loughborough had a good start and continued to power through to keep the lead, Gill Hepworth steered a good course and took them over the finish line in style. This is the second win for the ladies this year, the first being at Leicester earlier in the season.

The IM3 Eight Loughborough flew off the start and were in the lead all the way down the course, but were pipped to the post by a foot by Stourport, if it was me judging I would have called a re row!!

Loughborough entered the four Mixed Fours in the same style as the previous year, each with two women and two men selected at random. This is a fun race for Loughborough nicknamed ‘silly fours’ with four crews in the same race unfortunately however we were beaten by the younger Leicester junior crew in the semi final and again in the final.

Overall a successful and enjoyable weekend, the Loughborough crews will next be competing at Bewdley Regatta on the 24th and 25th July.

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