August 21, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

CHA rower’s summer culminates in Canadian Henley gold
by TOM UTESCHER

CHA’s Don Leatherwood

Overtaking rival crews from Mexico and Canada, Chestnut Hill Academy sculler Don Leatherwood and his partner, Corentin Morel, won the gold medal in the junior double category at the 2008 Royal Canadian Henley Regatta.

The 126th edition of the Canadian Henley was held Aug.  5-10 on a 2000-meter course at Martindale Pond in St. Catherines, Ontario.

Leatherwood, who will begin his senior year at CHA next month, and Morel, who hails from New York and attends The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, had already earned gold medals this summer at the Independence Day Regatta in Philadelphia, the U.S. Rowing Club National Championships in Camden, N.J., and at the Philadelphia Youth Regatta at the end of July.

Those victories were gratifying, but Leatherwood emphasized, “Doing well at the Canadian Henley was really our goal the whole summer.”

The CHA oarsman and his partner were representing the Essex Rowing Club, a small sculling program based at Conshohocken’s Whitemarsh Boat Club and coached by former Lower Merion High School coach J.D. Bridges.

Last summer, Leatherwood joined the newly formed outfit and did most of his racing in a (four-man) quad, as he does for Chestnut Hill Academy. This June, he was paired with Morel in a double as an experiment, and the combo clicked almost immediately.

“Corentin and I were the two heaviest guys in the program, so it made sense that we were in the double together,” Leatherwood explained.

Although the junior double category at the Canadian Henley attracted 60 entries, Essex had already seen most of the top contenders, chiefly at the US club nationals. The double representing the Mexican Rowing Federation, or “Fedemex,” won the final at that regatta, but as the first American finishers, Leatherwood and Morel earned the title of national champions. Two strong New England crews, Union Boat Club and Maritime Rowing Club, also raced in the final, as did a double from a top Ontario club, South Niagara.

In Canada, the usual suspects easily advanced through the preliminary heats, earning spots in the three semifinal races. From there, the top two finishers in each contest would move into the six-boat final. The semifinal and final rounds were both scheduled for the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 8.

In their closest race up to that point, Leatherwood and Morel won the second of the semifinal contests over Maritime by 2.55 seconds. A few minutes earlier, Union had eked out a semifinal win over Fedemex by just nineteen-hundredths of a second, and in the third semifinal, South Niagara was an easy winner over runner-up Thames River Sculls (New London, Conn.), with a split of 5.44 seconds.

Unlike the renowned English regatta from which it takes its name, the Canadian Henley is held on a regulation-length, current-free, six-lane course.

Leatherwood praised the venue, observing, “It’s about the only course I ever raced on where I can say there’s absolutely no difference between the lanes.”

There was a headwind for the finals late on Friday afternoon, but although the Essex rowers weren’t the largest bodies in the field, they had enough power to cope with the conditions.

Leatherwood said that going in, “We knew our competition, we knew we could win it – it was a question of executing the race right.”

The Fedemex double was known as being quick off the line, and Leatherwood revealed, “No one expected to be off the start quicker than Mexico; the rest of us knew we’d have to catch them.”

As anticipated, the Mexicans jumped ahead and proceeded to lead the race to the halfway point of the 2000-meter course. After that, Essex and South Niagara pulled ahead.

The CHA rower recounted, “We had a bit of a lead on them during the third 500, but then they jumped ahead of us and we spent the last 500 coming back from that. We got ahead of them when it counted.”

Less than two-tenths of a second separated victorious Essex (7:00.18) from the second-place Canadians (7:00.36), while Fedemex (7:07.44) was a good bit farther back in third. After that came Maritime, Union, and then Thames River.