Top 3 Places at Met Regatta
Out of 71 crews, OBUBC came away from Met Regatta with the top 3 placings in the Championship 8’s, taking home both the Championship title and the Academic pennant. With the 1st boat, this is a culmination of 3 – 4 years of hard work from eight of last year’s Temple Cup winners, looking to continue this unbeaten season into the Ladies Challenge Plate at Henley Royal Regatta. This is also very exciting to see not one but two new Temple crews forging out of the Brookes program, and establishing themselves as the first two UK favourite crews going into the competition. With Marlow Regatta approaching in 2 weeks, all crews will be looking to continue to stretch this lead out. In the B and D finals respectively, the men’s 4th VIII came 11/71, with the 5th VIII coming 27/71.
Taurus won Championships 4+’s in a time of 6:26, over crews from Sport Imperial and St. Andrew’s BC. The crew took control at the halfway mark and stepped away strongly in the second half, to come home 1L ahead of the field. The 4x came away with a 4th position in a very competitive field, comprising of the possible top 4 crews to enter into the Prince of Wales later this month at HRR.
In the Tier 3 events, the men’s 2x of Alex Bavage and Matthew Martinez won their final by a convincing margin, to also come away with some silverware. The freshers 4+ also put up a determined race to come 4th in their semi, but were 2 seconds shy of making the final.
The women’s 2nd VIII raced in the Challenge 8’s competition. After some hard-fought racing, they finished a fantastic 4th place overall out of 41 eights, recording their fastest time and best position ever by a women’s 2nd VIII. A new lineup in a women’s 4x came away with 2nd in a straight final behind a strong TSS crew.
In one of the last races of the day, the Brookes women’s 4- rowed a fast piece, finishing 22 seconds ahead of the field. Other significant results were a good first showing from the 2x of Emily Green and Jess Brown, and a great result in the Championship Open 2x by Imogen Mackie and Oxford’s Flo Pickles, finishing 2nd to a strong Irish crew from Skibbereen with a lot of international pedigree. The women’s 4+ raced in Tier 3 later in the day, coming away with a very respectable 2nd place. The women’s squad now look ahead to racing across 6 events at Women’s Henley in 10 days’ time.
The next races for the Boat Club are Marlow Regatta for the men, and Henley Women’s Regatta, both on the same weekend in 2 weeks time.
* Photo credit to Lewis Todd *