Di Clemente heads into Henley’s record books

This year’s Henley Royal Regatta in Great Britain may have lacked the usual national team entries but it did not stop rowing fans and revellers having the usual good time of socialising, eating, drinking and watching.

In amongst the club crews and university teams, South Africa’s top Olympic hopefuls in rowing Shaun Keeling and Ramon Di Clemente entered the men’s pair. The duo finished first, giving Di Clemente, who had previously won in 2004, 2005 and 2007 with then partner Donovan Cech, his fourth title at Henley. Teaming up with the younger Keeling earlier this year has turned out to be a fine match. The duo recently finished third at the Rowing World Cup in Poznan, Poland.

In the final at Henley, Di Clemente and Keeling raced Ole Rueckbrodt and Felix Otto who regularly race for Germany as lightweights but they missed out this year on making the lightweight four for the Olympic Games. Di Clemente and Keeling won “easily.”

The United States recently selected their men’s double for the Olympics and, as the crew of Wesley Piermarini and Elliot Hovey have never raced internationally, Henley was used as their Olympic warm-up. Piermarini and Hovey raced another USA boat, Peter and Thomas Graves, in the final and finished first. This USA match-up turned out to be a similar scenario to that of the men’s double at the USA Olympic trials where the two crews raced each other to claim the Olympic spot.

Also using Henley as a pre-Olympic burst was the Estonian men’s quad. In the final of the quad, Estonia raced the California Rowing Club from the United States. Estonia finished first.

Although the five-day event avoided the torrential rain of 2007, it still had to face changeable weather. A day of blustery wind leading into finals day caused a few crashes, slow times and near misses. On the final day, racing had to be delayed for 45 minutes and crews were called off the water. Racing then recommenced and the programme was completed.

In the men’s single, Ian Lawson, who was Great Britain’s single sculler at the 2004 Olympic Games, raced Ireland’s Sean Jacob in the final. Lawson won. Caroline Ryan of Ireland finished first in the women’s single.

In the prestigious Grand Challenge Cup for men’s eights, the Canadian under-23 team beat the University of Southern California (United States) which included six members of Estonia’s national team.  

For a full list of results click here.