Twelve and a half hours ago, under buckets of rain, the first starting gun went off for the Thames 200 Ultra. The paddle boarders and slower K1 individual racers were off. Four hours later, in a puff of pink and blue smoke, the relay crews, doubles crews, and K1 & C1 crews started with a competitive clash of paddles under Ha’penny Bridge in Lechlade: the start of the navigable Thames. By 8pm, the paddlers were more than 60 kilometers into the race as a golden sun set over the Thames in Abingdon. And now, a stunning orange moon, not quite full, has risen while the paddlers are getting close to the halfway point. It’s the first ever Thames 200 Ultra, and it’s already shaping up to be one of the most exciting ultra paddling races of the year.

3 crews, 100 km down, and nothing between them

A few weeks before the race we predicted that the Non-Performance Athletes (Royal Canoe Club), RCC & Friends (Richmond Canoe Club, sort of), and The Russell Family would be the top 3 favourites to take the relay crown. Since then, there were some new race entries and team changes that put Chelmsford (CLM & Cornwall) into contention for top 3 if not the favourites to win. As night falls on the Thames, all three are tight near the front – with a few more relay team changes remaining and the rest of the night, any of them could still win.

CLM & Cornwall (Chelmsford Canoe Club) shot out of the gates to an early lead and held onto that lead through the first two mandatory checkpoints. Led by strong opening performances in K1 from Pete Wilkes and Will Stroud they led RCC & Friends (Richmond Canoe Club) by 3:55 as the crews came into the Abingdon checkpoint (62.84 km into the race). As darkness fell, George Durden pulled RCC & Friends into the overall lead with the second fastest K1 leg of the day (more on this in a moment). But, despite some last minute crew shakeups due to illness, neither crew has been able to shake off the Non-Performance Athletes (Royal Canoe Club, or “Royal Retirees”) who had fought back into second place by the time the three crews had hit the third checkpoint at Pangbourne, 100 km into the race.

As we wrap up the coverage for the evening there’s almost nothing between these front three crews and it will be fascinating to see how their different strategies and race tactics play out. The leaders, RCC & Friends, are rotating through 4 different paddlers in K1 over the 6 legs. Non-Performance Athletes have 6 racers going through in 3 K2 pairs with each pair taking 2 legs. CLM & Cornwall started with 3 K1 legs and is now doing the last 3 legs as K2s. Which strategy will prove the best? And will these three still be neck and neck as the sun comes up over Teddington tomorrow morning?

The Kids are alright

The Chelmsford Yellows, a crew heavily made up of Chelmsford youth paddlers, set the standard early for the crews outside of the top 3 and have consistently held 4th place overall as the day moved on. The first two legs of the relay were done by youth paddlers, before switching over to adults for the nighttime legs (per race rules). Thankfully the adults haven’t let the kids down and Chelmsford enters the night with a 500m lead over Tonbridge Canoe Club. The Yellow From the Egg crew rounds out the top six, having made a strong push after the Abingdon checkpoint to overtake The Russell Family. James (Jimbo) Russell had put in an exceptional leg from Newbridge (Checkpoint 1) to Abingdon (Checkpoint 2) to catch the Russells up with The Yellow From the Egg. Jimbo only signed up for one of the legs on the Thames 200 Ultra since he’s busy preparing for Marathon World Championships in a few weeks where he’s looking to produce another strong performance in a record setting season he’s already had this year. Despite being in K1, he had the fastest time for Newbridge to Abingdon at just 2:47:29, ahead of the K2s.

‘Records’ under pressure

We could see 4 records, unofficial and official, set in the morning with the SUP overall, SUP women’s, K1, and C1 Fastest Known Times all looking like they’re still up for grabs. While most of the records are not official Guinness World Records, which operate under strict requirements, they’ll be setting race records as well as Fastest Known Times for the length of the non-Tidal Thames.

In SUP Gavin Symonds and Chris Davison are neck and neck for the overall lead (as of the time of writing they are 0.01 km apart, and have been wash hanging together the whole way) and pacing for a sub 28 hour finish, which would smash the previous SUP record of over 50 hours. Craig Sawyer is about 7km behind the leaders, but is also on pace to finish below 30 hours. Emily King and Alexandra Tyrer-Lomas are paddling together through the night and are currently on course to finish in 35-36 hours. Whichever of them takes the win is on course to take the Fastest Known Time. There was a moment earlier in the race where it looked like Tyrer-Lomas might have not continued, but she decided to persevere through the night and agreed to paddle alongside King – both felt more comfortable taking on the dark together, a tactic that seems to be working well for Gavin and Chris.

Harry Gilbert is leading the way for the K1 pack and is on pace to take more than 3 hours off of that record. He currently leads Richard (Hendron) Buston by just over 3 km, but with more than 110km for them to go it’s still anyone’s race. Thor Harley is currently sitting third overall in the individual standings and is on pace to finish in under 24 hours in C1, easily establishing a new Fastest Known Time there, and incredibly impressive speed for a C1 which is significantly slower than a K1.

Unfortunately the Prone paddling record for the length of the Thames is not going to be set this weekend. James Fletcher’s attempt was cut short when he had to withdraw near Sandford. Fletcher has a preexisting heart condition, and ended up having an issue during the race that prevented him from continuing – he’s fine now, other than being gutted to miss out on the prone record this weekend. Kate, who was racing alongside him in K1, decided not to continue solo. They’ll surely be back again soon for another attempt.

What will tomorrow bring?

With a hotly contested battle for the relay podium and potential records to be set and broken, there is going to be a lot of action still to come from the Thames 200 Ultra. The race will finish off in Teddington if you want to come out and join in person at the YMCA Hawker. As of right now, the top 3 crews are estimated to finish just after 5:30 am. Or, if you’d like to follow along on our livestream we’ll be out there on the finish line to see who will take home the crown.

Leaderboard (as of 11pm, 24/8/24)

Relay Teams

Position	Entry #	Team Name	Distance
1	160	RCC & Friends	114.19 km
2	90	Non-Performance Athletes	113.88 km
3	170	CLM & Cornwall	112.67 km
4	140	Chelmsford Yellows	99.89 km
5	180	Tonbridge Canoe Club	99.88 km
6	190	The Yellow From the Egg	99.73 km
7	100	The Russell Family	96.72 km
8	120	Sweet Thamestation	92.08 km
9	130	Exeter Canoe Club	89.94 km
10	150	Four feckin eejits	89.03 km
11	110	Barbarians	71.97 km

Straight Through Doubles

Position	Entry #	Names	Distance
1	25	Michael Rees-Clark & Samantha Rees-Clark	100.69 km
2	24	Matt Oliver & Dave Oliver	93.36 km
3	23	Mark Scrivener & Neville Davies	74.96 km
4	21	Ian Thackray & Daniel Colby	73.92 km
5	22	Miha Renko & Mauro Fiacc	63.67 km

SUP

Position	Entry #	Name	Distance
1	7	Chris Davison	96.77 km
2	11	Gavin Symonds	96.76 km
3	1	Craig Sawyer	88.78 km
4	5	Jan Szandala	83.24 km
5	10	Emily King	73.51 km
6	4	Alexandra Tyrer-Lomas	73.74 km
7	2	James Fletcher	Retired
8	6	Michael Frost	Retired

K1 & C1

Position	Entry #	Name	Craft	Distance
1	16	Harry Gilbert	K1	94.73 km
2	17	Richard Buston	K1	91.66 km
3	14	Thor Harley	C1	78.31 km
4	15	Joel Whittaker	K1	78.31 km
5	9	George Botsford	K1	97.62 km*
6	12	Robert McCall	K1	Retired
7	13	Ethan Wrigglesworth	K1	Retired
8	3	Kate Fletcher	K1	Retired

*George Botsford was in the 10am start wave while the other K1 & C1 paddlers were in the 2pm wave. His current position is based on racers’ timings through the Abingdon checkpoint