Ben Board - Raleigh House 2004 - 2009
Ben Board was a Raleigh pupil from 2004 – 2009. Since leaving the College, Ben has gone on to achieve huge success in rowing. Here, Ben tells the story of his rise to Youth Olympic Gold.
My name is Ben Board. I am 20 and currently living in Henley-On-Thames. I grew up in Shoreham-By-Sea and I started rowing down at Shoreham rowing club. I was only 11 when I first got in a boat. I started my rowing career on the sea. My first coach, Gary Saunders, saw I had potential and started working with me on my sculling. I was 16 when I first went to GB junior trails competing against much older and physically stronger boys so I didn’t come high on the results table. The next year came along and I was a lot bigger and much better at rowing. I had been invited to train at Leander rowing club. Leander is well known around the world as being the best rowing club in the world! It is located in Henley-On-Thames along the stretch of water where Henley Royal Regatta is held each year. With the likes of Sir Steve Redgrave coming from Leander I knew it was the best place for me. So with some solid training and full time coaches, I started to improve my rowing. At the next GB trials I finished 36th in the country. I was very pleased with this. It wasn’t fast enough to be selected but it had given me a glimpse of what I could do. So I got my head down and trained hard through the winter. This paid off as in 2010 I was 10th in the country as a Junior! I went to a GB training camp in France which was a real eye opener to me into the world of high performance sport. I then went back home to train at Leander and I was invited to another GB training camp in Hizlewinkle, Belgium. After my success in the trials, I was selected to represent Great Britain at the Munich International Regatta. This was INCREDIBLE! We flew over to Germany as a team and it was an amazing regatta, racing against lots of countries and experiencing my first International race. I then did some more trials for the GB selection and got chosen to go to Austria to represent GB in the ‘Coupe De La Juennese’. This is essentially European Championships. I raced in my single scull and won on the Saturday as well as Sunday!
Now we are back to the present. For the past few months, I have been living in Henley and training full time at Leander. I’ve been training hard and over the short time of full-on training, I have been improving dramatically! With being selected for Australian Youth Olympic Festival, I have been improving my rowing and getting even faster!
In January 2013, Ben travelled to Sydney for the Australian Youth Olympic Festival to compete in three events. This turned out to be a hugely victorious trip with Ben coming away with three medals; Gold in the double sculls, Silver in the quadruple skulls and Bronze in the men’s eight! An amazing achievement! Here, Ben answers some questions about his time in Australia and the future:
“Did you do better than expected?”
I didn't really have any expectations as I have never been to an event like this before. The challenge of the Youth Olympic Regatta was switching between three different boats; Double, Quad and Eight. We trained for a month together as a squad and two weeks in Australia; I think that really gave us the best possible chance in the races.
“What medal was the highlight for you?”
Obviously the GOLD! I won the gold in the light weight double and this was the boat that I most wanted to win!
We had a great semi final, winning and setting the fastest time in both semi's.
During the break in between races, we had a look at New Zealand’s times and figured out that they went out of the starts fast and then slowly decreased in speed. We used this information to create a race plan for the final. We went out of the starts fast, as everyone was not going to give an inch away to the other boats. Through the middle of the race we had a call that was to set a dominating speed. New Zealand were still ahead as we reached 750 meters to go but we were not worried and surprised them with a push so fast and so early that we managed to get ahead. The New Zealanders saw we had started a push and responded. But our attack was so fierce and brutal that we kept on moving past them, even though they were pushing too! 500 meters flew past before we knew it and we were in 1st place; this put us in the driving seat! At 250 meters till the finishing line, we sprinted as if there was a shark chasing us! The crowds were cheering as we put every last drop of energy into our rowing. We didn't stop till we heard the beep from the finish tower.
“What are your aims for the immediate future – next year or so?”
The next step on from this is Under 23 Great Britain trails which are held on in February. I am hoping to follow my success in Australia and do well. I will be training hard and continuing on as I was before, although now I have 3 Olympic medals and a nice tan!
Ben is now hoping to get into the GB squad for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. We wish him the very best of luck in achieving his dream and we will be watching him closely! Well done Ben!
