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Pairs Head wins and Henley photo-finishes: The races that shaped Greenbank Falmouth RC’s Tim Wilkinson

Fresh off a third-place finish at Scullers Head, Tim Wilkinson chatted with Fergus Mainland about some of the moments that have shaped his sculling career

As Tim Wilkinson recalled one of his most memorable campaigns at Henley Royal Regatta, there was a proud smile that grew across his face. He’d just knocked out the American Hugh McAdam and was gearing up for a Saturday showdown against Olympian Graeme Thomas, but it was his first-round race that was one of the most defining moments of his career to date.

“It was just awesome to race next to him.”

“2021 Diamonds was the year I got to the semi-finals,” explained the Greenbank Falmouth stalwart.

“Obviously, there were a few variables that helped me with that along the way, with it being the COVID year and the Olympic year. But the first-round race of that was against a guy called Will Young from Cambridge 99 RC who I actually went on to do Pairs Head with.

“That race was probably the closest race and hardest race of my entire life! There was a photo finish, and there was nothing in it. Looking back, it was horrible at the time. To have the video and to see it is pretty cool to see it now. There was an overlap the whole way. I remember going off the start and wondering when it was going to settle, and it never did! It’s a painful way to race, but it was very rewarding.

“When you’re drawn against one of the other people who have to go through qualifiers, you think that there is the potential to get through this round. But then, of course, in the next round, you’re straight in against a pre-qualified guy, so you’re straight back to that thought of it being unlucky. To get that race as well was a great surprise, and it meant the Saturday was Graeme Thomas, and you’re not going to win that. It was just awesome to race next to him.”

It was a fulfilling week of racing for the man from Falmouth. This march to Saturday was one of a quintet of challenges Wilkinson has launched for the Diamond Challenge Sculls. Add in his Temple Challenge Cup bid with the University of London BC in 2016 and a joust in the Britannia Challenge Cup in 2018, and it’s quite the CV that’s taking shape.

After studying at Royal Holloway, Tim returned to Greenbank Falmouth RC. Nearly tempted by the idea of doing a master’s and allowing one more year of rowing at the purple palace, he ventured back to the club that gave him his first taste of the sport, and he’s worn their colours ever since.

Under the watchful eyes of President James Kerr and those whom he trains alongside, Wilkinson has grown into one of the top domestic scullers in the country. Most recently, he’s reached the A Final of Championship Singles on both days at Met Regatta and placed third at this year’s Scullers Head, one of his favourite races on the calendar.

“Scullers Head wasn’t on last year, which was a shame. I’m usually a bit better at the longer racing, so it was good to be back, and it’s the best result I’ve had there since 2021, so yes, it was nice. I wasn’t really expecting it to be quite that good. In an ideal world, the top five is really nice. It’s a really good place to be if you can get that.

“I had a really good battle with the guy who went off after me from Lea RC [Max Raymond-Barker]. I think that helped me get the most out of where I was fitness-wise. Sometimes, if you end up in a gap on your own, you back off unconsciously, but when there’s someone a few feet behind you for 20 minutes, you can’t really do that!”

The Tideway has been the canvas for some of Wilkinson’s finest masterpieces. After some phenomenal ding-dongs with Young, the two of them decided to stop wrestling with each other and take on the rest of the country. The result was an emphatic overall win at the 2023 edition of the Pairs Head.

“We raced each other a lot for a number of years in the single, always very close racing. At a certain point, you think, ‘Here’s another person who’s putting in as much effort and is getting the results, so why would you not get in the same boat and go and see what that’s like?’ That’s what we did, which worked out very well.

“Pairs Head is always a couple of weeks after Scullers Head. We both raced Scullers Head, I then drove up to Cambridge and we trained together on the Sunday. I did the same thing the following weekend, and the week after that was Pairs Head. Not a lot of training to be honest!”

Over the years, Kerr has been more than a coach to Wilkinson. For the 2018 Britannia Challenge Cup, Wilkison teamed up with the then 55-year-old, along with his nephew, who was 17 years old, which the statisticians thoroughly enjoyed. They were the first crew from Greenbank Falmouth RC to race since the 1970s, and their win against Wallingford RC in the first round was the first time a Greenbank boat had won at HRR.

Fast-forward six years, and there are still some outstanding results coming out of this unit. Wilkinson and Lex Kerr would travel to the Tideway, where they would win Pairs Head by 0.1s ahead of City of Oxford RC, Wilkinson’s second victory in two years.

The trips back to London and to the Tideway are nostalgic. Wilkinson’s time at ULBC, guided by Phil Gray and Hugo Gulliver, taught him how to train hard, and he went on a steep technical learning curve.

“When I first got there, I was technically quite far behind everyone else, but then by Henley I’d managed to make it into the first eight, which I never thought would be possible.

“It was a steep learning curve. From the training side, I went into it thinking that if you did a hard erg one day, you had the next day off, so that was a shock to the system when you’re erging every day and things like that! That ability to have a launch next to you for kilometres at a time was great. When you had a coach there with a megaphone, as soon as you slip out of what you’re supposed to be doing, they’re right back on you, and that really helps.”

This year, Wilkinson won’t be heading to Boston for trials as he has in recent years. It leaves his winter wide open with plenty of possibilities for racing and mixing up his training. One thing that is certain, though, is that he’ll be attacking next summer and next year’s HRR with as much vigour as we’ve come to expect since breaking onto the domestic sculling scene back in 2019.