The Club's Results

The paddle up to the start was below our normally exceptional standard of rowing, but thankfully this meant we had plenty of good strokes left for the race. By the end of the first stroke it was clear that victory was assured, so we wound down to a lethargic 28. A cheeky push saw us raise the rate to 30, taking around 2 lengths of the field in the process. However, our 3 man decided that the margin was becoming inappropriately large so we settled back down and cruised home to the screams of the huge crowds following us, and Peter Ford. (Rich)

We heard that Molesey had been training for this race for years, and had sent their top boat (with assorted Olympians) to reclaim the prized Coronation Challenge Cup. However, Natasha Menell's experience coxing novice tubs, and Miles' legendary victory at the St Edward's Red Nose Row Day 2005 inspired us to great deeds. Thus we prepared ourselves for a closely fought race. We leapt out of the start, losing two seats to Joe 'Monster-Start' Baddeley's Crew of Giants. This upset Strawson so we overtook them. By 1000m we were leading the field by around half a length, but knew that we would have to up our game to beat the LMBC steroid-fuelled brutes (in their trademark light four). Molesey pushed us hard towards the finish, but Sasha calmly refused to lift the rate or even break a sweat, content as he was to win by a comfortable 0.8s, time enough to get off the water, change and greet the runners-up at the landing stage.

We look forward to racing this combination again, hopefully against LMBC, and our arch-rivals Sidney Sussex. Let's see if their recent bold claims have any substance behind them - we are ready. (Rich)

We were determined to go off the start aggressively, as we had been encouraged to do so by Fred Gill the previous morning in training. This was successful, and despite being a touch slow in the first three strokes, by 500m gone, we were half a length clear of the field. This was a pleasant surprise in such a high level event.

At 750m gone, still about half a length ahead of Georgetown, Natasha started to swear and steer violently. A puff of feathers later I saw a swan struggle from under Coker's blade and into the safety of the reeds. All things considered, we recovered remarkably well but had obviously lost some speed and our strong rhythm. More importantly, Georgetown had taken a lead over us.

We sat behind them for the rest of the race. Our wind at the end was scrappy and failed to increase the speed or even the rate significantly. We raced this one to the line, as only first place would proceed to the final, second and third going to the rep.

Pleased that we had shown we were competitive in Senior (indeed, we had led the race until we hit the swan), and eager to keep fresh for the rep, we decided at this point to scratch from IM1. (Sasha)

The other heats had posted slightly quicker times than ours (although conditions were varying) so we expected this to be a tough race. Three of the five crews (a sixth crew had scratched) would go through to the final.

Once again our start was fast, and we were doing well in the first 30 strokes, placing us in 2nd or 3rd place. We then took our stride/ surge and settled onto race rhythm. From this point on, other crews started to move our ahead of us.

We raced well and aggressively, but never quite found a good groove to come through with. Our pushes were effective; according to Natasha, when we pushed, we closed on the other crews, but our base pace wasn't fast enough.

Once again, we wound for the finish but with less effectiveness than the other crews, including LMBC. (J. Strawson)