Imogen Grant and Emily Craig take success in Stonor Challenge Trophy at Henley Royal Regatta

Imogen Grant and Emily Craig flew the flag for the lightweights with victory at Henley Royal Regatta.

Bar Hill-based Grant, who was representing Cambridge University Boat Club, and the University of London’s Craig were competing in the women’s double sculls Stonor Challenge Trophy, and were lightweights up against openweights.

It was a quick return to racing after they finished fourth in the lightweight double sculls at the Tokyo Olympics, missing out on a medal by 0.01sec and off gold by just 0.5sec.

Having reached the final at Henley, they faced two GB openweights, Jess Leyden and Georgina Bradshaw, and Grant and Craig were ahead by a length by the halfway point at the mile, but Grant and Craig had more gears to go through, and won by three quarters of a length.

“Sprint, sprint, sprint!” was Grant’s answer when asked what was going through her mind.

“We had an amazing experience in Tokyo, but didn’t manage to get away with a medal. This was a bit of fun afterwards. But I have to admit, what was going through my mind was that I’d really like a medal!”

There was also Cambridge University Boat Club representation in the final of the Silver Goblets & Nickalls’ Challenge Cup final.

Past president Callum Sullivan joined forces with fellow Blue Ollie Parish in the men’s pair, and they were up against Oxford Brookes’ Morgan Bolding and Matt Tarrant, who were the Olympic reserves in Tokyo for GB.

They had too much power for the Light Blues, and secured a comfortable margin of victory.

Another former CUBC president, Dara Alizadeh, reached the semi-final of the Diamond Challenge Single Sculls.

He had also competed at the Tokyo Olympics, representing Bermuda and carrying their flag into the opening ceremony, but lost in the semi-finals to GB under-23 world champion Seb Devereux, who was in turn beaten by Graeme Thomas in the final.