Tom Bishop can’t give up that winning habit and came away with five gold medals and a bronze from this year’s British Rowing Masters Championships.
As is often the case, conditions were not great on the Holme Pierrepont course in Nottingham, with a strong head wind on Saturday necessitating the abandonment of the stakeboats. Saturday’s racing is nowadays reserved for sculling and Tom’s first race was in Open Masters H quad sculls in a composite with Mark Alloway of Tideway Scullers and Dave Hope and Rod Stewart of Upper Thames. They won their heat by a couple of seconds over Dart Totnes (https://rowresults.co.uk/results/brmc26/Race108.pdf with a similar margin over them again in the final (https://rowresults.co.uk/results/brmc26/Race131.pdf).
Tom raced next in a three-boat final of Open Masters single sculls with a comfortable win over crew mate Rod Stewart in second place (https://rowresults.co.uk/results/brmc26/Race173.pdf). His Last race on Saturday was the final of Open Masters I double sculls, partnering Mark Alloway of Tideway Scullers (Tom was inadvertently entered in TSS colours). This resulted in a comfortable 21 second win over Colin Barratt and Ian Andrews of Ardingly and Tees a further eight seconds behind (https://rowresults.co.uk/results/brmc26/Race216.pdf).
Sunday – sweep oar day – started still with a headwind, but not as strong as Saturday, and eventually turned into quite a nice day with a tail wind. Tom’s first race was to row in a composite H coxed four in a combined Open Masters H/I race with handicapping. The two Masters I crews were given an eleven second start over the four H crews; a lead which proved insurmountable with Tom’s crew finishing third behind the two older crews, having closed the gap with a second 500m six seconds faster than the winners but only earning the bronze medal (https://rowresults.co.uk/results/brmc26/Race317.pdf).
Next, Tom got a last minute phone call to row in an I 8+ in an H/I handicapped event. As the only I crew they got a ten second start over the other three crews and had a great row holding the H crews (including Bedford Star) off by a length at the finish (https://rowresults.co.uk/results/brmc26/Race352.pdf). Tom’s final race – and win – was in a composite Open Masters H coxless four with Dave Hope and Rod Stewart of UTRC and Steve Aquilina (ex-QBC of TSS). They had a two-second lead over Dart Totnes at the 500m. mark and added a further two seconds before the finish (https://rowresults.co.uk/results/brmc26/Race393.pdf).
These wins take Tom to the top of the Potwinners Chart.
An honourable mention for part-time barfly Steve Cardwell, who won bronze in the Open Lightweight Masters G single sculls wearing Nottingham County colours.
And a footnote from Tom who said, “Each year I forget what Nottingham last year was like and go again when I shouldn’t”.
The winning Masters I eight
