Young rowers will be taking to the Thames next week in the first Youth Boat Race – four days before the annual Oxford v Cambridge race arrives.
Staged on the same stretch of water, the new event is on Tuesday 26 March and involves seven schools from west London.
Mixed crews of boys and girls will take part in the first race of the day at 11.45am, pitting the rowers of Cardinal Vaughan in Holland Park against Aldridge Academy of North Kensington.
The second race, at 12.45pm, features mixed school and gender crews from Sacred Heart High School, Hammersmith; Hammersmith Academy; Fulham Boys' School; West London Free School; and Holland Park School.
Spectators are encouraged to gather downstream of Putney Bridge for the races, which are rowed over the first part of the Boat Race course on a low-water flood tide, umpired by rowing legend Sir Matthew Pinsent and Judith Packer, who is umpiring at the 2024 Olympics.
Hammersmith & Fulham's Mayor, Cllr Patricia Quigley, will present the medals at Thames Rowing Club on Putney Embankment.
Team event
The event is a joint enterprise between Fulham Reach Boat Club and the charity arm of the annual Putney-Mortlake Oxford v Cambridge row, now in its 169th year.
The Gemini Boat Race is on Saturday 30 March, with family-friendly fan parks opening at 11am in Fulham (in Bishops Park at Fulham Football Club's Riverside Stand) and Hammersmith (in Furnivall Gardens). The women's race starts at 2:46pm, with the men's at 3:46pm.
Fulham Reach Boat Club, based at Distillery Wharf, off Chancellor's Road in Fulham, has been at the heart of youth rowing in the area for a decade. Chief executive Adam Freeman-Pask called the new Youth Boat Race "an amazing opportunity for our young athletes", and said he hoped that the race would grow to include more schools in future years.
Jonny Searle, who chairs the Oxford and Cambridge Rowing Foundation, said it "aims to provide a powerful opportunity for locally based youth rowers to become a part of this high-profile sporting event", while Siobhan Cassidy, chair of the organisers, added that she hoped it would "inspire young people".
The Boat Race Fund, which works closely with youth clubs along the river course, is paying for the event.
