A JUNIOR woman rower who learnt to row on the Wye stormed to championship glory over the Boat Race stretch of the Thames on Friday.

Former Monmouth Comprehensive School rower Violet Holbrow was on board the Wycliffe Rowing 8 that ended a decade of dominance by the powerhouse squads of Henley RC and Headington School to take the Girls’ Championship 8s title in the prestigious national Schools’ Head of the River Race.

Even more remarkably, the Wales junior international’s crew only started rowing together with one blade – sweep oaring – last month, as most of them are sculling specialists who use two blades.

Two weeks ago, they placed a brilliant third just five seconds behind the two established junior pacesetters in the Women’s 8s Head of the River over the same 4.25-mile reverse Boat Race course from Chiswick to Putney, taking an overall placing of 24th out of 307.

This time, the cream of Britain’s school and junior rowers set off in 339 eights and quadruple sculls at 10 second intervals, with Wycliffe, who train on the Gloucester-Sharpness Canal, starting last of the 17 boats in their championship category.

And with Violet at four and Ross RC rower Yasmin Howe at six, they used that momentum to push on and overthrow the top two, beating Henley by 4.7secs in a time of 18 minutes 45.8secs, with Oxford-based Headington a further 13.4secs adrift in third.

Monmouth School’s 1st 8 finished fourth out of 21 in 1st 8s in 18.14, which placed them 32nd overall among all boys’ 8s, with Shiplake overall fastest in 16.47.

The B boat came 16th in 2nds 8s in 19.28, while the U15s came ninth in class in 20.41.

Monmouth School for Girls’ top eight were ninth out of 17 in their 1st 8s event, crossing in 20.42, which placed them 36th overall out of all girls’ eights.

Their 2nd 8 were 12th in class in 22.30, while the U15s were fifth out of nine in the schools age-group class in 21.47, but lost a considerable amount of time after a collision.

Their time placed them 12th among all U15s.

Results: www.shorr.org.uk