The Club's Results
Fairbairn Cup 2025
1st men's VIII (Senior VIIIs)
| 1st men's VIII | |||
| in Black Prince | |||
| bow | George Howard | 2 | Andrew Farquharson |
| 3 | Sam Pearson | 4 | Emile Hantrais-Smith |
| 5 | Isaac Brown | 6 | Jeremy Gundle |
| 7 | Daniel Edwards-Medic | str | Csongor Beke |
Coxed by: George Moger-Taylor
Fastest boat
Time: 14:30
Time: 14:30
May have overcooked a little. Began losing vision as we approached the reach spinning zone but dug in HARD and kept it going over the rest of the course. Blew up completely about two strokes from the finish. Who needs to see while rowing anyway? (it's not like Caius were in line of sight)
I still can't believe we actually did it.
Turn! Turn! Take the corner!
~anon coach to anon cox
Strangely, today is much less stressful than being on th bnk yesterday. Maybe being in the boat makes you feel much more in control.
Prepaddle good, if a little congested - clearly the O*ford colleges are trying to actually stay on the wet bit this year. We get back to change to racing kit and fuel up one last time.
We push off, and spend some time getting to the ideal line - for us, straightish will not do...
And George's hand comes down - attention, GO!
A quick build yeilds rapid results - pushing a rate of 37 before we go under Emma Footbridge. Straight into a race rythym of 36 (Csongi wasn't satisfied with steam training along at the prescribed 34.5, and was doing a Flying Scotsman instead) and we hold the legs through concrete corner. The GPS coxbox splits come on line out of the corner, and we already know these aren't great - the morning paddle showed we should have been faster.
But no time for excess thought - simply commit to the legs, the technical calls, getting that full stroke, the early catch, we're past Cantabs, relax the arms, puppet arms, posture, Csongi - directly in front of me, shouting to George to "Attack Green Dragon" and we pull through the bridge.
And then the lactic starts to creep it's way to the legs. Warded off so far by the numbing effects of adrenaline, it starts to rear it's ugly head as the calls from our bank parties die away. This is where we make or break.
And make it we do - a call for big 5 is met with ferocity by the crew, pushing up half a pip of rate and several splits. We push through the P&E, and attack towards the railway bridge.
The welcome tailwind out of the bridges carries us on for speed, makes the boat a little lighter as the oars go in. From the railway bridge to the railings is familiar ground - we've done this countless times in the past 8 weeks, pushing the splits down and down in training. Somehow, the 2 minutes feels less than it normally does.
And we attack Ditton - fighting to keep on our exhausted cores, (that extra core session a week, though disgusting at the time, definitely has made a difference). We sweep past a plough strangely quiet for race day (though, admittedly, drinking before 10 on a weekday... actually, we all know Luke would do that).
On to first post reach, and Bomber calls us to push onwards now. Csongi attacks the water once more with ferocity, and we push down.
George isn't happy. He's been watching these splits, and he wants us to move now. The upwards push to the finish line gets called at the power lines, and we slam into the outlet mid build.
Speed increase = gone...
Let's move - the shout from the bank spurs us to action - and we push upwards on the rate, giving extra strokes to get the power from our screaming legs to leap the boat forward. Up to 38 - up the the fastest at any point over the course - my eyes start to struggle to stay open as tunnel vision closes in - and I hear, though barely, the welcome sound of the horn.
I'm so far gone that George drops stern pair out immediately - and Csongi sounds the most worried he has in a long time - not great to have that directed at you when you're fighting to regain some semblance of breath and ability to think...
And we spin and pull in, and wait for the results.
Turns out the river had slowed down, we hadn't lost our ability to row, and the waiting for results was more than worth it.
YEAH M1!
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1. Cup reclaimed
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Links
Full Mich Term 2025 1st men's VIII results
Fairbairn Cup 1st men's VIII results archive
Compare this time with all Fairbairn Cup times in the archive
