Marlow Regatta

Marlow regatta was our penultimate race as a club before the all important BUCS regatta coming up on the 24th of June. With so little racing, this was a great opportunity for our athletes to get some experience under their belt before we head up to Nottingham. This regatta provided a lot of challenges for both athletes and coaches alike, which had the end result of one crew being scratched and another being unable to race. Despite this, the club managed to turn out some decent performances to give us confidence going forward.

The women’s squad entered two crews into the Women’s Quad category this year, with some performances to build on in the last run up to BUCS. The A quad which had some medical issues in the run up to the event decided to withdraw from the event after placing 5th in the Time trial with a competitive time of 6:45, a decent result considering the difficulties that faced the crew. This also placed them 2nd out of the student crews that entered to a fast GB start quad. After assessing their situation, the crew and coach decided to withdraw from their final to focus on being 100% for BUCS. The B quad turned out 24th in the Time Trial with only 3 seconds separating 18th to 25th. They then placed 5th in the B final and out of the student crews, a decent result for the club being one of two university clubs that entered a B boat into the event.

The men encountered their fair share of challenges for their races this year. On the morning of the event, a member from our C quad tested positive for COVID which inevitably led to their race being scratched. Our C quad (Matt Wheel, Jasper Elliot, Nick Pritchard, Henry Fletcher) will now unfortunately not be allowed to race at BUCS due to university restrictions. Despite this setback, the rest of the men produced some great results. Our A quad placed 2nd in the Time Trial, only 3.7 seconds behind a very fast Leander crew containing one of our recent Alumni, Rory Harris. The boys eventually placed 4th in the A final after another great match up with Hartpury College, with only 0.3 seconds separating the two crews on the line. Our B quad produced another fantastic result by placing 6th in the time trial despite being entered in the Tier 2 event. They went on to produce a win in the A final of the Tier 2 quads. Our D boat was also in the A final of Tier 2 quads and placed 6th after placing 15th in the Time Trial.

With Marlow out of the way, we now look towards BUCS to learn from what little racing we have completed this year. BUCS is shaping up to produce some fantastically close racing for the medals, and we cannot wait to see what we can do as a club.

H Fletcher