December 11th 2002, Royal Automobile Club, London
Henley Royal Regatta's annual meeting yesterday ended with three new Stewards, one new trophy and a not entirely unexpected rule change.
The three new august officials are Ben Hunt-Davis, Lynton Richmond and George William Hammond. Hunt-Davis is the first of the Sydney Olympic champion eight to be elected a Steward (but he probably won't be the last), and took a phone call from the Regatta at 6pm last night after the decision had been made. "I'm absolutely thrilled, what an honour", he said. "I had hoped to be a Steward, maybe when I've done more for rowing in ten or twenty years, but this was a complete out-of-the-blue surprise."
Lynton Richmond is an ex-international and Oxford Blue who now does a great deal of work behind the Dark Blue scenes on behalf of their Boat Race squad. Hammmond famously goes by either name, answering both to 'George' (in his capacity as National Schools Regatta entries secretary) and 'William' (as the Henley Royal Chairman's Assistant) and has been promoted to Steward after 22 years of devoted service to the Regatta in that capacity.
If you wondered, the new Stewards don't know anything about it in advance - in fact last year Annamarie Phelps only found out straight away because the Stewards exiting the meeting congratulated her as she was waiting for her husband Richard to emerge. What happens if a nominal Steward ever refuses, history does not relate...
One of the new rule changes will not surprise anyone involved in the final of the Visitors' Cup. After the 'goose debacle' it is now mandatory for any crew claiming outside interference to object immediately after the finish of the race, which brings it into line with the rules on claiming fouls. The other major rule change is a demotion back to the rules of a few years ago for the lowest coxed fours event. Previous Temple Challenge Cup winners are once again excluded from the Britannia Cup: this presumably in response to the Harvard University clean-sweep last summer.
The Women's Quadruple Sculls has a new name and trophy: it becomes the Princess Grace Challenge Cup. This is in honour of Grace Kelly, filmstar and wife of Prince Albert of Monaco before she died in a mountainside car crash in 1982. Kelly's connections to the sport were considerable: she gave the Regatta's prizes out in 1981, a year before her death, and two of her family were notable oarsmen.
Jack Kelly Snr., her father, was one of America's most renowned rowers, winning three Olympic gold medals but legendarily never rowing at Henley, which is attributed by some to an unlikely claim that he was not an amateur, and by others to the more logical reason of his club Vesper's having a disagreement with Henley. He won two of his three OIympic golds 30 minutes apart in 1920, first rowing Brit Jack Beresford to a virtual standstill and a 1-foot verdict in the single sculls, then jumping into the double and doing it all over again.
Grace's brother Jack "Kell" Jnr. put the Henley problem right: coached by his father, he won the Diamonds in 1947 and 1949, but only managed to win Olympic bronze. The United States Olympic Committee established a Fair Play Award in his honour after he served as the organisation's vice-President.
The final change to the Regatta as far as rowers are concerned is a new rule banning selected Under-23 crews from the Thames as well as the Ladies, which will push them up towards the Grand, or they may not come at all.
Finally, the Regatta has managed to husband its resources carefully despite the falling value of investments, and gave £0.25 million to the Stewards' Charitable Trust last year. Part of this went back out again to pay for two Coaching Scholarships, as well as a grant towards Project Oarsome, and to the Rowing Foundation.
Membership applications for the Stewards' Enclosure are now more numerous than ever: it can now take more than seven years to get up the list, even if you have rowed, or even won, at the Regatta. The practice of putting rowers' children down for membership before they begin the sport has now been discouraged, which may provide a boost to the hoi-polloi from non-rowing families who nevertheless do very well in rowing without any help.