The Club's Results

Yay! Well done girls! Keep it up :o) (Erica)

Well... we won :) Despite my new and exciting tactic of not actually having my blade in the water for the second and third draw strokes we managed to pick it up and ended up with a comfortable victory. Hopefully by tomorrow will have worked out the basic physics of rowing (always the damn physics!) and can have power AND some form of technique... (Charley)

Disappointing result for today, but we didn't give it to them easily, and they are probably the best IV I've seen on the river this week. After a blade clash at the start they pulled away slowly for the first half of the reach, and we just couldn't get it back. We knew they were going to go off hard, and they stopped gaining any more after that, but the damage was done and we couldn't come back.

In the grand scheme of things, this was a chance to check that we're in the same ballpark as the other crews rather than the be-all-and-end-all, and what we have to take away from it is the fact that yesterday we were faster than everyone else, and today we rowed hard and made Emma work for it. So we're not the best IV? Doesn't mean we can't be the best VIII by Lents. We've just got to keep on working. (Harriet)

This wasn't the best row we've ever done, but it was definitely better than yesterday (I even managed to put my blade in the water every stroke this time!) so at least we're heading in the right direction. It picked up after the railway bridge when we started to come back, but by that point the damage had been done and they held us off at about a length to top finish. However, they were by no means a lot better than us, and today was a useful learning curve that can only make us better in the future. (Charley)

Despite the cold, fatigue from previous racing and a bit of marshalling drama, the girls managed a good display of contrast, togetherness, and sharp cornering. Being chased down the course by a 99's IV with serious points didn't hurt, either.

The crew is unpolished and the rowing was by no means perfect, but this race was encouraging. The only college women's IV to post a faster time was a Homerton crew in the Senior category. (Magnus)

This row felt suprisingly good! Sure it was a bit rushed at times, and at points it started to sag, but in contrast to Uni IVs we picked it up together and there was some serious power going down. I'm certain that the quick trip to Portugal Place for doughnuts and pie between divisions made all the difference... (Charley)

Best row of term. Two seconds is nothing, how can it be the difference between winning and losing? (Harriet)

That was a great row girls! After the morning race, we were all tired but the sharp focus and motivation kept us going hard and powerful until the end. Emma's win was less than 2 seconds, so I agree with Harriet that it is so unfair to have it be a difference between a win and a loss. But despite the final ranking, we rowed really well and we should be proud of ourselves. Good job! (Julijana)

Best row of term by far, definitely finishing on a high! Long, relaxed and powerful with everything coming together in a way it never quite has before, with the push for the finish incredibly painful but pretty awesome. Think the dizziness, nausea and cramp on the row back home shows just how much we put into this, so whilst the result is a little frustrating it really doesn't matter, especially since we were over 20 seconds faster than the next crew. And to be mentioned in Coker's Fairbairns Dinner speech really was the icing on the cake! (Charley)

Awesome result girls! (Jane)

I only just noticed that this race was up, so I think it deserves a comment. The race was the 5th outing with the crew that raced, and it's was great that we had a good week to get used to rowing together. The first outing was not bad, but the best part was the every successive outing got a lot better than the previous one. We rowed at rate 32/34 very comfortably by the end of the week and definitely for the race, while still keeping strong and long strokes. Tom contributed greatly to our improvements by showing up *nearly* always on time and coaching all the outings. A great thanks to him from the whole crew, and to Cynthia for the amazing coxing of the outings and the race.

Now... about the race. There were three crews total entered in our category so were going for a win (a scarf or a shot glass, this was ours!). Being close to the end of the second division, the marshals were letting crews start racing very close to each other. We started about 4-5 lengths behind a Cam 99 crew in the same division as us. About 1k through, we caught up and as we were overtaking them right in front of King's Boathouse, the crew in front of them (some school boys IV), decided to cross on the other side of the river so our boat was in a non-existing gap between the two boats. After a lot of blade clashing, cox hitting (luckily not our cox), and stopping then restarting, neither boat let us go before them. As soon as we were off again, we overtook both the women's IV in front of us and the boys' IV and finished with a good sprint.

I reckon without stopping twice our time should have been around 9 min which is a really great result! Nice job girls! And we got medals, slightly less useful than either scarfs or shot glasses... (Julijana)

I would've said always nearly... The girls trained hard for the last week or two and I think the result is pretty good. Yeah buddy! (Tom C)