WYE rowing stars Yasmin Howe and Ella Bardsley-Taylor will be heading for Henley Royal Regatta next week buoyed by good performances on the Thames.

The Ross RC duo will be racing for their academic clubs in girls’ junior quadruple sculls at the world’s most prestigious open rowing regatta, which dates back to 1839.

Yasmin’s Wycliffe College quadruple scull raced to double success at the two-day Reading Amateur Regatta, before making the final at Henley Women’s Regatta last Sunday.

And former Newent Community School pupil Ella also raced to the final of the U18 girls’ singles racing for Hartpury at the nation’s biggest women’s regatta.

Yasmin’s boat beat Shiplake College in the semi-final over 1500m on day one of the Reading event, before then winning the school junior girls’ trophy by defeating Kingston Grammar School.

On day two over 1000m, it was a straight final against Americans Agnes Irwin School, and again Wycliffe prevailed.

Then a week later at Henley Women’s, her crew set the fastest time in the opening 1500m upstream time-trial, pipping 2021 Henley Royal champions Shiplake by 0.1secs.

In the quarter-final, they then faced Kingston again, only for the Londoners to be off course and disqualified.

Wycliffe then saw off Henley B by 1/4L in the semi-final, before Shiplake were again their opponents in the final having beaten Marlow by 1/2L.

This time the Thames crew got away faster and drew out to win by 1L in a time of 4.54.4.

But while the final result was a disappointment, it shows that her crew can challenge for the biggest prize of all next week.

Meanwhile, GB junior cap Ella came second in the opening time-trial and then beat Marlow’s Isabel Kelland-Shorthose in the quarter-final by 2L.

She then beat Marlow’s Mia Lawrence by 1 1/2L to set up a final with GB team-mate Megan Knight, who she partnered to bronze medal double sculls success at the recent Munich Junior International Regatta.

It was a tough battle between the duo, but it was the Trentham sculler who finally took the trophy, winning by just over 3L in 5.52.4.