Starting in September 2019, the world renowned rowing programme at Oxford Brookes University will take on a junior team for the first time. The programme will be run as a partnership between Brookes Rowing and the local college, City of Oxford. For the first season, eight students on the Extended Diploma in Sport and Exercise Science course (expanding to sixteeen in the second season) will be training alongside the main university squad, with the ability to move into the university course immediately after completion. With dedicated equipment purchased for the junior squad, Henry Bailhache-Webb and the rest of the coaching team at Brookes show that they are not taking their next venture lightly.
This move is a big step for Brookes Rowing and the whole GB Junior Circuit. With the recent growth and results from the junior teams at Leander, Henley and Maidenhead, the club system in the UK is growing year on year. The close relationship between a college and a club allows timetables to be specifically tailored to promote both the academic side and the sporting side, without the risk of one negatively affecting the other. Applicants to the course do not need to originally live in Oxford, or go to City of Oxford College, with the ability of moving in with host families available to applicants.
Last year, Oxford Brookes won the Head of the River and the Ladies Plate at Henley Royal Regatta for the second time in a row, whilst the Temple eight made their respective final, losing out only to the University of Washington, USA. On the girls’ side, Brookes won Academic Eights at Henley Women's Regatta and the Victor Ludorum at BUCS Regatta, making the entire programme the most successful in Europe.
If you would like to find out more about this, the official press release is here
The main contact to register interest in this course is Mark Burrows -mark.burrows@activatelearning.ac.uk
Rory and the AllMarkOne Team