The Club's Results
Lent Term 2019
2nd men's VIII
Bedford Head (Open Eights (Band 3))
3rd, (+00:26) to First and Third M1
Time: 6:32
Time: 6:32
A pleasantly high result given the circumstances. The race fell midway through a bout of illness that hit the crew, meaning the crew had two subs for the race—one of which was ill themselves.
In the actual race, the rate didn't come up quite as quickly as we'd have liked, but we kept it fairly punchy for the first 1.2 km. Unfortunately, at this point, the after-effects of a week of illness started to show; the power started to drain and my coughing, albeit rhythmic, did little to motivate the crew.
The overall time wasn't representative of our speed, but it wasn't too disappointing relative to other crews who were competing.
Bedford Head (Open Eights (Band 4))
7th, (+00:28) to Queen's M1
Time: 6:45
Time: 6:45
While our first race was bad in terms of the number of subs, the subbing of a sub meant that only three of the rowers were actually in their usual positions for our second race.
The story of the race was similar to that of the first but with substantially less of the rhythmic coughing that characterised the first. The tiredness of having already raced once showed and, while the rate was kept high, the stroke length was not. Missed catches, and missed strokes, ultimately lead to the time being 13 seconds slower than the first race.
At least we kept our boat hole-free...
Lent Bumps
Down 4 - Bumped by St. Edmund's, Darwin, Sidney Sussex and Hughes HallTuesday
Bumped by St. Edmund's
Bumped by St. Edmund's
We seemed to generally keep pace with St. Edmund’s (for the most part), but didn’t quite turn it up enough on the pushes, and occasional mistakes meant we dropped back slightly. We pulled away on the corners and almost made it away from them on Ditton, but our stern was caught by the St. Edmund’s bow’s blade’s tip, after many strokes with significant overlap.
Thursday
Bumped by Darwin
Bumped by Darwin
I arrived to find M2 huddled together like penguins trying to stay warm in the driving rain and icy winds of Storm Freya. Not the most pleasant day for racing it must be said. Misha even had to give me his glasses because even with them he couldn't see.
Despite the conditions M2 rowed very well. They held station on Eddies for around two minutes, with Kerem taking some wonderful corners. As Darwin approached, M2 maintained their form and still looked slick. Unfortunately legs seemed to be tired and Darwin bumped us on the Plough. An unfortunate result despite an impressive row. Same again tomorrow boys - but with more legs!
The heavy rain had a telling effect on the boat, with the speakers becoming muffled before the race had started. The start was suboptimal; a very taught chain led to the boat swinging out slightly to stroke side and a couple of missed strokes from stroke side exacerbated this. The start was fast, and we initially moved on St. Edmund’s, but Darwin then turned up the heat and caught us following the exit of Grassy.
Links
Full 2nd men's VIII results archive
