9 April 2025

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch notes an exciting new development.

Good news appeared on fourshead.org on 8 April.

The Committee of the Fours Head warmly welcomes the addition of the Junior Fours Head to the racing calendar. As our race has been over-subscribed for many years, it is clear that more racing capacity is needed for high quality head races for fours on the Championship Course in the autumn. The new Junior Fours Head provides this.

For this reason, the Fours Head will not offer Junior Events in 2025. However, as we recognise that circumstances for some clubs may make it difficult for their junior crews to enter a weekday race on a separate day, junior-age crews may enter senior events at the Fours Head, subject to Conditions that will be set out on our Entries page in due course.

In the spirit of enabling the maximum number of crews and competitors to race, we – and the Organising Committee of the Junior Fours Head – strongly encourage clubs to enter junior crews in the Junior Fours Head as their first choice. In addition, junior rowers in any crew entered in the Fours Head must now be J17 or older.

We recognise that the Junior Fours Head represents a significant change to the racing calendar and we will review the events we offer and our entry criteria after the 2025 races in the light of the entry profiles of both competitions.

Summary of changes to Fours Head entries for 2025 relating to junior crews:

School/Junior events are removed from the programme.

Crews of junior age may now enter the senior Championship, Club and Academic categories.

All junior rowers competing must be J17 or older (J16 and younger coxes may still be accepted subject to approval by the Race Committee).

2025 Race Dates:

Friday, 14 November (11.30am): Junior Fours Head
Saturday, 15 November (12.15pm): Fours Head
Sunday, 16 November (time TBA): Veteran Fours Head