Two Gold Medals and Our Best Performance at BUCS Regatta in Club History

Fergus Knight
Tuesday 7 May 2019

Last weekend, we travelled down to Nottingham for the 2019 BUCS (British Universities and Colleges of Sport) Regatta. Racing was spread across all three days of the bank holiday weekend, and what a weekend it was. Every crew that competed in an A final medalled, winning us four BUCS medals in total in both the Senior Men’s and Women’s teams – our best ever performance at this regatta. On the overall medal table, we topped British Rowing High Performance Programmes, such as Imperial College Boat Club.

On Saturday, we had six crews racing; four Women’s Intermediate Coxless Pairs, one Men’s Intermediate Single and one Men’s Championship Lightweight Coxless Four.

It was an extremely exciting day for the club. After placing second in time trials and winning their A/B semi-final, our top Women’s Intermediate Coxless Pair, Kirstin Giddy and Lydia Theos, won our first ever BUCS Regatta gold medal. A huge achievement for the girls, this result equally reflects the strength of our programme, with our new Director of Rowing, Jordan Stanley, and the vital backing of our donors and supporters.

Sunday saw another five crews out racing on the course:

WB 4+ (A): Annie, Anne, Daisy, Maddie and Sarah (cox)

WB 4+ (B) : Kanna, Alex, Nicole, Kirstin and Angus (cox)

MInt 2x (A): Aidan and Dom

MInt 2x (B): Monty and Johnny

MInt 4+ : Chris, Henry, Oscar, Campbell and Holly (cox)

Our Women’s Beginner Fours started the day by placing a fantastic 6th and 26th in time trials respectively. Later in the day, they finished 2nd in the B final and 1st in the E final. This is a fantastic result for these girls, who only began learning to row back in September. Next year, they will move up to the senior ranks, and we are excited to see what they will achieve.

The stars of the day were our Men’s Intermediate Coxed Four. They won a bronze medal in the A final, our first ever BUCS medal in this category. These boys were the fastest Scottish Coxed Four of the entire BUCS Regatta, and will be looking to qualify for Henley Royal Regatta in July.

Monday was our busiest day, with seven crews racing:

WC Lwt 2- : Ailsa and Marissa

MC Lwt 2- : Monty and Campbell

WInt 4+ (A): Morgan, Lydia, Kirstin, Skye and Sarah (cox)

WInt 4+ (B): Alice, Morgan Y, Izzy, Delaney and Holly (cox)

MInt 2-: Oscar and Henry

WB 8+: Annie, Kanna, Alex, Kirstin, Nicole, Anne, Daisy, Maddie and Angus (cox)

MInt 4x: Aidan, Dom, George and Chris.

After a strong set of time trials in the morning, our crews progressed through to the finals. Again, we saw an encouraging performance from our novices. Out of 31 crews from across the country, our Women’s Beginner Eight finished 6th in the C final. Our Men’s Intermediate Coxless Quad had an equally impressive day, finishing 1st in the D final. A strong result for our largely sweep team.

After the success of our Senior Women’s Coxed Fours the previous weekend at the Scottish University Championships, the girls didn’t fail to disappoint for this second weekend of racing. Our second Women’s Intermediate Coxed Four finished a fantastic 16th place in time trials, and went on to finish 4th in their C final. Our first boat in this category, made up of Morgan Hartley (4th year), Lydia Theos (1st year), Kirstin Giddy (3rd year), Skye Arnott (3rd year) and Sarah Hoke (4th year), won an outstanding bronze medal in the A final. This is the second year in a row that we have won a bronze medal in this event, showing the strength and quality of our squads, despite a high yearly turnover, as characteristic of university rowing clubs.

Again, it was in the Intermediate Coxless Pairs where we saw our most exciting result. Our Men’s Intermediate Pair, Oscar von Hannover (4th year) and Henry Marles (2nd year), won our second BUCS gold medal. The boys demolished the field in the A final, finishing in a time that would have placed them in fourth position in the final of the Men’s Championship Coxless Pairs, consisting of U23 athletes. The whole club was extremely proud when Loch Lomond was played over the entire regatta as Oscar and Henry picked up their medals.

Overall, BUCS Regatta 2019 was a fantastic weekend for the club. The results we saw are the product of years of hard work from our athletes, the success of our high performance programme, led by our Director Jordan Stanley, and the continued backing of our alumni and wide network of supporters.

Our club has grown and experienced new success over the past few years. With the generous support of donors, we can build on our success and go even further. In the next few years, we would like to have athletes representing Great Britain on the U23 squad. Our two gold medals in both Men’s and Women’s Pairs are certainly extremely encouraging. Our winning pairs’ times were some of the fastest in BUCS recent history.

We are currently raising money to expand our fleet of boats through a donation campaign, Project24. Click here to donate and support us.

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