BUCS Regatta

After a long wait, BUCS regatta finally came round for the RUBC athletes. After an un-precedented time of change and challenge, the club was given its long-awaited chance to demonstrate and display the hard work put in by athletes and coaches alike. Despite the challenge of training over lockdown, fitting in training around online university and all the other problems caused by Covid, BUCS was well worth the wait. With 27 crews entered, RUBC won 6 gold medals and 2 silvers over the course of the three day regatta, complemented by another five crews making A final positions. This was a fantastic achievement for the whole club and is a result we are all proud of. Additionally, the Women’s squad came 5th and therefore included in the top 5 universities on the Victor Ludorum, which is a huge achievement for a sculling university. Overall, RUBC managed to make the top 10 on the Victor Ludorum, a testament to the strength of the programme and the athletes.

Despite having a smaller squad size than usual this year, the Women’s squad performed very well this year in all of their entered events. On day 1, the women entered two doubles, one championship, one intermediate and a lightweight championship quad. The lightweight quad (Chloe Knight, Lara Brittain, Lauren Maddison, Kirsty Naismith) had a fantastic regatta, coming first in their time trial to eventually take home the gold a full 14 seconds ahead of the rest of the field and to win the first medal of the regatta for RUBC’s first final. The championship double (Rachel Heap(c) and Liv Morgan) closely followed with a gold of their own ahead of Edinburgh and Queen’s University Belfast despite placing second in their time trial. Our intermediate double (Abby Collins and Leah Atkinson) managed to place 4th in the C final of the most subscribed event of the regatta, placing them around midtable of the event. With these results, the women placed 2nd overall on the Victor Ludorum.

BUCS

On Day 2, the women entered two quads in similar fashion, one championship, one intermediate. Our champ quad placed 3rd and our intermediate quad placed 6th in their respective time trials sending the intermediate quad to the A/B semi-finals. Having placed 4th just outside of Queen’s Belfast, the intermediate quad (Kirsty Naismith, Lauren Maddison, Leah Atkinson, Victoria Norton) proceeded onto the B final where they placed 3rd, which placed them 9th in the overall competition out of 34 entries. The championship quad (Chloe Knight, Lara Brittain, Liv Morgan and Rachel Heap(c) ) had a nail-biting race for the silver medal against Cambridge, with only a second separating the two at the 1500m mark. Through a strong last 500m push, the girls edged out a 2.8 second lead over Cambridge to take the silver medal, a great result supported by a great performance from our top boat from the women’s squad.

Day 3 saw an armada of singles entered into 4 categories from the women’s squad. Chloe Knight, entered into the Championship lightweight event, placed 2nd in her time trial to eventually place 4th in the A final in a highly competitive field of singles, a great result considering her taxing two days of racing like the rest of the squad. In the championship single event, Rachel Heap(c) and Liv Morgan placed 8th and 5th respectively in a tightly packed group of scullers, with only 5 seconds separating 4th to 10th. Both scullers raced each other in the repechage to place 2nd and 3rd which sent Liv into yet another A final for RUBC. Liv placed 6th in the A final out of a field of 15. The intermediate lightweight event saw a great range of success, with the time trial yielding Lauren Maddison topping the field, Kirsty Naismith placing 5th, Lara Brittain placing 9th and Victoria Norton placing 14th. After the semi-finals the crews produced the following results: Victoria placed 1st in the C final and Lauren came out of the A final with another gold medal to add to the RUBC tally, with Kirsty also gaining a great A final position of 5th. These results also added valuable BUCS points to our overall score. Last but certainly not least, Abby Collins entered into yet another highly subscribed event of intermediate singles, where she eventually placed 3rd in her D final, marking her 21st out of 31 competitors and giving her some great racing experience as a first year. The results gathered from the woman’s squad this year placed them 5th overall out of every other woman’s squad at the event, a remarkable achievement for a small club and an even smaller squad.

With the women producing such a strong performance this year, the men had their work cut out to match their performance. Yet, despite complications with Covid resulting in four of our athletes having to withdraw, the men produced some superb results that reflected the work put in and the adversity overcome over the last few months. Day 1 was the flagship event for the men’s squad, with all of the boys entered into 3 quads; one championship and two intermediate. The A quad (Edoardo Marshall(c), Ollie Dix, Louis Powell, Laurence O’Connor) in the Champ event placed 1st in their time trial, with the B quad (Alastair Holbrough, Charles Powell, Josh Lyons, Sol Hewitt) matching their performance and also placing first in their respective time trial. Our D quad (Will Gorner, Jacob Parrington, Jonjo Findley, Tiernan Purkess) placed an impressive 4th place in the intermediate event. The intermediate semi-finals saw both quads racing in the same race, with our B quad placing 1st and our D quad rowing through Imperial college in the last 500m to place 2nd. The finals came around, and our A quad raced with huge determination to row through and beat Hartpury for the first time this season and raise a decent challenge to Newcastle to claim an impressive silver medal. The B quad produced a dominant performance in their intermediate A final to claim another gold medal a full 7 seconds ahead of 2nd. The D quad despite giving a brave performance fell just short of the medals by 2.5 seconds.

Day 2 brought about the singles events, with the men’s squad entering 6 boats into 4 events. Alastair Holbrough entered into the Championship Lightweight single and placed 4th in his time trial and his A final, again adding to the growing number of RUBC boats being competitive in A finals. Ollie Dix entered into the championship single event and placed 5th in the B final, in a very high calibre event; a very credible performance considering his recovery from appendicitis a few months before. Will Gorner and Morgan Gray entered into the intermediate lightweight singles and again produced some great performances for the small amount of preparation in small boats they have had. Will placed 6th and Morgan 16th in their time trial, and following their semi-finals produced a 5th place in the A final for Will and 3rd place position in the C final for Morgan. Tiernan Purkess also entered into the intermediate men’s single, and also achieved a 3rd place in the C final which placed him 15th with over 40 entries into the event.

On Day 3, the boys were entered into doubles, with our top double Edoardo Marshall(c) and Laurence O’Connor entered into the Championship doubles event, our two intermediate doubles of Josh Lyon, Louis Powell and Sol Hewitt, Jacob Parrington and our lightweight double of Alastair Holbrough and Charles Powell entered into championship lightweight doubles. Our Champ double placed 4th in the time trial and outside of the medals, but with a stunning performance in the A final to storm out to second place for first kilometre and then to row through Strathclyde to take a fantastic gold medal by a boat length. The success did not stop there, as our intermediate double of Josh and Louis placed 1st in their time trial, semi-final and A final to take home a dominant gold medal, a great feat for two of our first years. Our other double of Jacob and Sol placed 4th just outside the medals in another great A final performance. Our lightweight double placed 3rd on the time trial but placed 3rd in the reperchage meaning they missed out on the A final by a couple of seconds, but still produced a great set of racing. The total medal tally for the boys ended with three gold and one silver, all in all a great haul from a relatively small entry of crews this year.

This year also saw our novices take to the water for their first race of their season. Unfortunately, Covid loomed over our novices this year and as a result another 5 of our athletes had to be scratched. But for those that did manage to race, the experience was wholeheartedly enjoyed by the novs, and each athlete gave it their all which is all we could ask from a group that has had their introduction to rowing fractured so much. Our Beginner 2 quad (Alfie Hare, Alex Johnson, Matthew Roach, Will Percival) placed joint 5th in their time trial to eventually place 4th in the B final. Our Beginner 1 quad (Ollie Tincknell, Tom Hughes, Jaspar Claringull, James Davies) set off well but in true novice, not to mention spectacular, fashion snapped an oar 750 meters in. Despite this mishap and being eliminated, the boys were in good spirits afterwards, having managed to complete the race despite being one person down. Our Women’s Beginner 2 quad (Poppy Hart, Beth Coleman, Jessica Bird, Ellie Richmond) placed 17th in their time trial and 3rd in the C final, giving them an overall ranking of 15th. A special thanks to Laurence O’Connor, our novice captain, and his assistant coaches, all of whom who are members of the club, who gave up their time after sessions to coach our wonderful novice squad this year.

Credit: AllMarkOne

Another thanks to the coaches; Will Rand, Chris Bartley and Charlotte Taylor who have helped our athletes tremendously throughout this year, without them few of our athletes would’ve made it to BUCS never mind the spectacular amount of medals achieved from such a small squad. To demonstrate how significant our medals are, we achieved a ratio of 1 medal per 2.5 members of the club that was racing. Away from the medals, every athlete racing did the club proud and gave the very best of themselves, which is what we strive for with #purplepride. With BUCS now out of the way, our club now looks to the Henley Women’s and Henley Royal Regatta’s to see what else RUBC can produce this season.

H Fletcher