Metropolitan Regatta

Metropolitan Regatta saw RUBC amongst many other clubs around the country compete at their first regatta in almost two years. After months of challenges, charity efforts and fantastic efforts to train at home, the squad fielded one of the largest university squads at the event with some great results that reflected the strength and depth of our team. Both the men’s and the women’s squad entered quads and doubles on both days of the regatta.

The Women’s squad put out some strong performances for a relatively small squad size this year, with Lara Brittain and Chloe Knight claiming the first victory of the season in the lightweight women’s double, a fantastic achievement. Lara and Chloe were also competitive in the open event, managing to place 8th in the A final of the open event. Another outstanding performance was Rachel Heap and Liv Morgan’s hotly contested race which placed them 2nd in the A final of open women’s doubles, only 3 seconds behind 1st. Kirsty Naismith and Lauren Maddison also placed highly in the lightweight event, claiming a 3rd place in their event and in the B final of the open event; Another example of the high standard of our lightweight athletes. First years’ Abby Collins and Leah Atkinson gave a great effort for their first race with RUBC and placed 5th in their C final. For the quads, our A quad claimed 3rd place in the open Championship event, with our B quad placing 5th in the B final, pipping Nottingham RC by 0.4 seconds on the line. Overall, the women accumulated 2nd, 3rd and 8th places in A finals over the weekend, as well as a 3rd and a 7th in B finals followed by a 5th in the C final.

For the Men’s squad, we had four doubles and five quads entered over both days, a great squad size considering the challenges the pandemic has presented. For the open doubles on Saturday, one of the most commendable achievements from the weekend came from Eduardo Marshall and Laurence O’Connor, who achieved 4th in the A final despite being behind the field at the first 500 metre marker. Louis Powell and Josh Lyons also put in a strong performance to eventually place 6th in the A final. The other two doubles (Charles Powell and Alastair Holbrough) (Henry Fletcher and Matthew Wheel) placed 2nd and 5th respectively in the B final, with Al and Charles being yet another lightweight double placing highly. In the quads, our A boat placed 3rd in the A final after a close battle with Hartpury College, losing out on 2nd place by 0.4 seconds. The B quad placed 5th in another close match up with only 2 seconds separating 4th, 5th and 6th. Our 3rd quad won the B final with our 4th quad only 2.5 seconds behind in an awesome match up down the course. The 5th quad successfully managed to win a spot in the B final with the other two Reading boats and placed 5th. Overall the men achieved 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th place positions in A finals, as well as 1st, two 2nd places, 4th, and two 5th place positions in the B finals over the course of the weekend.

Overall, our squad put in a fantastic first effort over the weekend, with some great results considering all the categories were open championship events. We now look forward to BUCS regatta and Marlow regatta in the coming weeks to see what we can do. #purplepride

Henry Fletcher