All race reports for Tony Song
Event: Emma Sprints 2012 - Division 1
Posted as: Song
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On arriving at the boathouse, we found the NM2 had not left the elf hats out for us. This meant we couldn't contemplate losing in the first round, being the only crew not in fancy dress. This was quite an eventful regatta given that Jamie was injured after a collision with another boat on the row down and the cox box wasn't working so despite me shouting at the top of my voice, bow 4 couldn't hear anything. During the race, we were clearly the faster crew but we certainly didn't make it easy for ourselves with many crabs from everyone and Matt, who was subbing in, had his foot straps come off. Every time we had a couple of clean strokes, we would pull ahead several seats, but the crew kept the audience in suspense all the way to the finish by crabbing over the finish line.
Event: Emma Sprints 2012 - Division 1
Posted as: Song
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This race was much better than the first, although there still were quite a few crabs and Matt stopped rowing again due to his foot straps coming off. Despite the loss, this was a good experience which we can take into Clare Novices.
Event: Novice Fairbairn Cup 2012 - 1st division
Posted as: Song
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This was a good race in which we kept a steady rate and had a push off the railway bridge. Afterwards it transpired that there was some confusion over where the start and finish lines were and Oskar "300" Schortz revealed he could have pushed harder. After the race, we got out of the boat and witnessed some 'unusual' rowing styles from the boats after us. Then we had an interesting row back to the boathouse with the crew order reversed.
Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Wednesday
Posted as: Tony Song
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The lesson to take away from today is to never give up (and know where your finish is!) Again, we weren't perfectly straight off the start, but we held Churchill II at station and pulled away from Kings II considerably. However, coming out of Ditton, a crab coupled with a lift from Churchill meant that they managed to lengthen the gap to around 4 lengths by Morley's Holt. I must admit, at this point, I had my doubts about whether we could catch them, but after a brief discussion with the crew and bank party, we decided to chase them all the way to top finish. This turned out to be a great decision as Churchill appeared to be winding it down by the P&E. Spurred on by this, we pushed hard while they simultaneously easied, which meant we had an easy first bump which was met with loud cheers from the girls.
Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Tuesday
Posted as: Tony Song
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A fairly subdued first bumps race. The start perhaps caught some of us off guard (me included! as we weren't straight)- 20 seconds goes by a lot quicker than you think! With Girton II bumping out behind us early on, we were free to chase Catz II hard. However, they were going for Churchill II which meant that the distance was kept at about 1 and a half lengths up until Grassy. Catz finally got Churchill coming out of Ditton and by then most other boats in the division had bumped out, which left us realistically looking at the row over and this was achieved with ease.
Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Friday
Posted as: Tony Song
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This was gutting. We knew Churchill would come at us hard, but we thought we would at least be able to hold them off and we knew we could catch Magdalene. Our start was good, but they were going all out and began to close on us quickly. We had managed to get the gap to Magdalene II down to about a quarter of a length when Churchill bumped us coming into First Post corner.
Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Saturday
Posted as: Tony Song
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This was very similar to yesterday's race. Jesus went out hard and we tried to respond by getting the gap to Churchill down to less than a quarter of a length, but we were caught coming into First Post corner. I think we need to learn how to maintain our composure to be able to react to crews gunning for us from the start.
