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Message board > General Discussion > BUSA


BUSA by Give us some competition!-jo - Sat 7th May 2005, 11:27am
Hi everyone, was at BUSA last week competing in Novice (ARA novice) events and it struck me that your girls were way better than most of the crews we came up against, especially in the iv+ event. I was suprised that only a few crews from cambridge bothered entering (magdalene and CUW) especially since Durham entered a huuuuge amount of boats. How come so few college crews enter? Discuss.

by Dan - Sat 7th May 2005, 5:56pm
How come so few college crews enter? Discuss. Im sure its got something to do with how difficult it is to organise...

by Light and Dark Trinity - Sat 7th May 2005, 6:32pm
I think I thought the standard was much higher than what you seem to suggest. I guess it's not a competition we hear a lot about, probably cos not a lot of colleges go. Vicious circle? Next year :D

by Tom C - Sat 7th May 2005, 7:11pm
probably because it's the weekend before the catam deadline, which rules out about half of our men's squad. and it's a long way to travel.

by I like men really - Sat 7th May 2005, 8:47pm
Tom C said: which rules out about half of our men's squad. Well, noone suggested the men were any better than their prospective BUSA opposition ;o) But yes, it's a long way to go. Also I think Cambridge rowing is generally more college- and Cam-based, whereas by most accounts I've heard the river in Durham is too narrow to allow much good racing so they enter more external events?

by Tom C - Sat 7th May 2005, 10:38pm
But we aren't too scared to enter competitions against people who might actually be good.

by jo - Sun 8th May 2005, 6:38am
I don't think that being scared of competition is an accusation you can throw particularly accurately at the current squad. There is a limit to the number of off-cam events people can find the time/money to get to, and it seems fairly sensible to select the ones where you have a good chance at excelling in some way, or events that other colleges are going to to make trailering easier.

by jo (UEA) - Mon 9th May 2005, 12:15pm
Most other university clubs get money from their union to cover race entries and petrol costs for the BUSA events. Perhaps since you would have to race under the banner of Cambridge and a bracketed college CUSU could be persuaded to contribute and a transport exchange could be organised specifically for the event. I know it seems like a lot of hassle but it is a lot of fun- multi lane is so different from one on one and a lot more exciting. its also a good place to scout out the competition were you to be thinking bout entering the acadaemic competition at Women's Henley etc ;-)

by Simon - Mon 9th May 2005, 12:42pm
jo (UEA) said: CUSU could be persuaded to contribute and a transport exchange could be organised specifically for the event. I may be out of date, but I believe that in Cambridge the Sports Syndicate funds people going to BUSA events but they are dead against Colleges competing at BUSA for any sport (even with the bracketed College addition) so would not help out here. I think the bigger issue is the timing. Term starts so late in Cambridge that you realistically need to have decided to enter before the Easter break. You're also racing people for whom the whole year is built around doing well at BUSA, where as most College crews are in a rebuilding phase after the holidays. Also, if you're not ARA novice, then you have to race in the Championship event unless there's a CU/CUL/CUW boat entered in the same category as you or another College in the same category as you whom you can con into entering the Championship event. Either way there's some extra logistics needed when entering which is additional hassle, especially during the holidays.

by Martin - Mon 9th May 2005, 2:26pm
I may be out of date too, but all of Simon's comment sounds v. relevant to me... Representing Cambridge when you are not actually Cambridge introduces various difficulties, which when you would be rocking up in some scratch crew makes all the hassle seem rather pointless. Rich would probably have something to add - think he had some stress entering us as Cambridge II. And some mate of Will Thorne's had a massive go at me the other day over this - amusingly without even knowing I had been involved; I believe he was in some crew we'd beaten and thought it was bang out of order that we didn't have to race as a 1st VIII. Perhaps all the divisions and things have changed these days?

by jo - Mon 9th May 2005, 2:34pm
well at the end of the day it's about what is possible. and we got bitched at before the event because our novice 8 had just won S3+ acadaemic penant at WeHoRR so I can see some people can be put off entering good crews if they get hassle off lame clubs. I just thought it was a shame not to see more colleges around since Magdalene managed to put three crews in, one of which narrowly missed out on a gold medal in junior 4+.

by Rich - Mon 9th May 2005, 2:38pm
Rich would probably have something to add - think he had some stress entering us as Cambridge II. Nah, the hassle was around the fact that it was Magdalene who had been originally entered as Cambridge II, and when they dropped out we won the scramble to get their place. But as has already been said, the only reason we were allowed to race in the second VIIIs category was that there was another CU crew entered as the first VIII (in this case CULRC). Also, I believe BUSA only allow two crews from a University, so colleges entering is very limited anyway. On the flipside, this was an awesome day out (mostly as we utterly fluked a bronze medal with a scratch crew rowing terribly!) And as I mention in my report, rowing as Cambridge with dark blue blades was utterly bizarre - really confused the commentators! And to the friend of Will's, I suspect I would have had to retort that they should have been grateful that Goldie didn't choose to take up their rightful spot...

by Lilie - Mon 9th May 2005, 3:06pm
Well I for one would be well up for entering next time- esp if we had a four or something like magdelenes which had been kicking around for a term or more, or even people who had been rowing together previously [light and dark trinity, what do you reckon?]. Even if we got totally trashed by all the Uni crews, I reckon it'd be a worthwhile experience. And CUW are bound to send some crews aren't they?

by Simon - Mon 9th May 2005, 4:21pm
Lilie said: And CUW are bound to send some crews aren't they? Er, no (sorry to be negative). Depends on the squad that year: how committed they are to post-BR training; how much they love/hate each other after the race; how much they need to rescue their degrees; how many have been selected for GB, etc...But no reason for First and Third not to enter. A fairly scratch First and Third crew did very well in Junior 8s a few years ago.

by Wet 'n windy at Nottingham - Mon 9th May 2005, 5:00pm
On the flipside, this was an awesome day out (mostly as we utterly fluked a bronze medal with a scratch crew rowing terribly!) This doesn't do it justice. We were rubbish. Utterly cack. Rowed awfully, dead last after 500m and didn't really deserve to finish. How we ever went from there to overtaking three crews remains a mystery. A rather sad testament to the ability of Uni 2nd VIIIs back then

by Simon - Tue 10th May 2005, 6:42am
Rich said: I believe BUSA only allow two crews from a University, so colleges entering is very limited anyway. Yeah, they only guarantee two crews (+ unlimited novice crews, but they have to go through a Getting on Race).

by jo - Tue 10th May 2005, 10:53am
qualifiers are a 1750 time trial and the majority of boats are piss poor, if you don't have points its well worth doing. The medals are very shiny and nice, although we missed out on them by 140th of a second. OUW got the gold. my advice is if you do decide to enter the novice event do the BUSA head and prequalify. we didn't and the extra race we did lost us the medal as our competitiuon in the final had prequalified.

by Anything to do with being short - Tue 10th May 2005, 2:34pm
Martin said: And some mate of Will Thorne's had a massive go at me the other day over this - amusingly without even knowing I had been involved; I believe he was in some crew we'd beaten and thought it was bang out of order that we didn't have to race as a 1st VIII. Do you have the name of the friend that I need to berate over this? I've not got a lot to go on here.....

by jmg - Tue 10th May 2005, 2:41pm
We were rubbish. Utterly cack. It was also quite amusing that, thanks to a screaming tailwind that blew up over the course of the day, we twice recorded faster times than CULRC had posted in their (earlier) heats.

by Martin - Tue 10th May 2005, 2:49pm
Anything to do with being short said: Do you have the name of the friend that I need to berate over this? I've not got a lot to go on here..... On the day you passed your PhD - the lifelong pal of yours sat on my left who had rowed at, I think, Bristol??? No beration really needed but he did seem very bitter!

by dw229 - Tue 10th May 2005, 10:18pm
Alex Brown? If so, he's Henry and I's coach at Furnivall now...