Having been selected for Coupe last year and having a great time in Italy I came back to school wondering how this year was going to compare, There were initial doubts going through my head about whether it would be as much fun training at school as it had been at Molesey, However once we started to get out in a regular crew, it proved to be just as good. This year's VIII was fun to work with because every member of the crew wanted to do well right from the start and this showed in the dedication given to training sessions, People did not need to be chased to go to circuit training and weight sessions as they have in past years, and we all seemed to get along quite well. This helped in achieving some of Monkton's best ever results and I have to say I was sad when we got out of the boat at Henley knowing that was the last time we would row together.

Having failed to get into the GB Munich team at Easter Trials I travelled to Nottingham with a real lack in confidence for the final trials. At the end of the trial when I found out I was part of the Coupe team for the second year I felt gutted but was told that I would lose the seat if I wasn‘t positive in my approach to training.

This year I was in the Coupe VIII which trained at Pangbourne and was coached by Rupert Bancroft. This meant driving up the M4 and staying there for three days before coming back for a day and a half break. However, the motorway proved too difficult a task for my car, and it broke down two hours from anywhere, leaving me to arrive very late for an outing and providing a great deal of amusement to the rest of the crew who chose to remindme every time I got back in the car.

I had hoped that this eight would show as much dedication as was shown by the Monkton eight but at first we all approached the training with not quite the level of seriousness there should have been. This was soon put to right by Rupert when he explained that if we continued in this way, we were heading for a sound thrashing (explained using a slightly different phrase but you get the picture). This turned out to be a good thing and after this a crew who could have easily been defeated by most school crews started to pick up and go faster. I think that it would have been even better in training if we had all been a little less hostile toward each other, but it turned out that there were always going to be one or two short tempers, which were not helping crew speed, and everyone in the boat was slightly responsible for this although a certain amount of this is bound to be present when the crew was made up of people from five different schools.

Once in Ireland this seemed to change, as the crew began to stick together as a unit, maybe because we did not know other crews in the team. Even small things like all eating at the same table seemed to help when discussing race plans, which proved crucial. The lake was certainly a nice venue if you were there for the scenery but provided the perfect cross-wind for that little bit of added excitement. But on the Saturday the weather was excellent and conditions were almost perfect. Our aim right from the start was to get two gold medals, but until our first race we could not be too sure about the realism of this target. We went on the water full of confidence but still slightly lacking in the professionalism shown by other crews in our category. That combined with a less than perfect row and a race plan that was a little suspect gave us the disastrous result of fourth position. That evening after a dinner together as a crew and fending off jeers and insults from the rest of the team we decided to get a silver medal the next day. Gold would have been nice but the Irish were untouchable and deserved their victory, so after a meeting in which split times and race plans were analysed we changed things around. Sunday arrived and we were the last race in the regatta, so much waiting around followed, before a much more composed and prepared British VIII boated and headed for the started. After halfway we were leading, and with 250 metres left we were half a length down from the Irish and half a length up on the Swiss before a catastrophic crab meant we were dead level with Switzerland, France and Italy; we finished within a second of all these crews. This provided a long wait while the Judges analysed the photo-finish, When the result was announced the sound of nine very happy British boys (one of whom was amplified!) echoed around Inniscara lake. That was probably the closest, most exciting and scariest race that I have ever experienced.

Jamie Cox