Rowing club’s rising star in world championships

Jess Leyden

Hollingworth Lake Rowing Club’s Jess Leyden has been picked to race in the World Rowing Junior Championships.

Miss Leyden passed on the trials and won some major events to be picked to race in a junior quad sculling crew to be held in early August.

Miss Leyden, who is still in the junior 16 age category, has been attending GB trials since last October culminating in the final trials two weeks ago where she finished second in all age groups by 0.1 sec - a remarkable feat considering her age as the majority of girls are 17 or 18.

She has been trialling in a number of combinations - quads, doubles and singles, and competed at the Munich International Regatta in April where she won a bronze medal in the quads race.

In early June at the Metropolitan Regatta a different combination took second place in the women's senior final.

In July she was in a quad that won Gold at Henley Women's Regatta in the Women's Senior 4 event.

This makes Miss Leyden the first Hollingworth athlete to win at Henley Women’s.

These results stood her in good stead for the final trials where which she was picked to represent GB at the World Junior Championships.

Miss Leyden was also selected to race in the single scull at the Anglo / French match which is a Junior 16 event held at the Docklands London Rowing Centre last weekend.

She won her race convincingly by more than 23 seconds, in the process helping the GB Team to retain the Championship Cup which was taken to the final race of the day, the British men’s eight winning to give GB the cup by 7 points to 6.

The quad picked for the World Championships with Jess are Katie Bartlett from Nottingham RC Kiara Weaver of Latymer School and Lucy Burgess from Runcorn RC. The girls are training together at various camps right up to the Worlds event which is to be held at Dorney Lake from the 4 to the 7 August. This event is being used as a dry run for the Olympics which are to be held there next year.

On the domestic front she has competed well at many events, and taken a Silver at the National Schools Regatta in a Women’s Double scull with Ashley Thornton and a Gold in the Single scull event.