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This weekend saw the GB Rowing 1st Assessment take place in Boston, Lincs- which marks the first step towards next year’s Olympic Games, U23 World Rowing Championships and FISU World University Championships. 48 Brookes athletes attended the testing, which comprised of a 2k ergo on Saturday followed by Sunday’s 5k water test. In the morning division, Josh Bugajski, who won a bronze medal at this summer’s World Rowing Championships in the Men’s Eight, finished fastest of the Brookes athletes in the men’s pairs- partnered by James Rudkin. Their second place finish was followed by Morgan Bolding in fourth and Rory Gibbs close behind in fifth. Matthew Tarrant rounded off the

The first race of the season for most athletes was Upper Thames Head this weekend, where five men’s crews and four women’s crews raced in the afternoon division. The race provided a good opportunity for the crews to gain race experience in the absence of the British Rowing Championships, which are normally held at the end of October. The men posted a 1-2-3 with the three fastest times of the day. With the 1st VIII rested following the Head of the Charles Regatta the previous weekend, the 2nd VIII took the honours, 21 seconds ahead of the next fastest club. The women’s 1st VIII posted the 16th fastest time of

A dominant performance throughout the week in the Academic Eight saw a completely new crew of Alice Harper, Lieben Dickens, Coralie Spearman, Harriet Ferguson, Katie Metalli, Jordan Simper, Beth Meakin, Beth Wilford-Dutton and returning cox Aisling Humphries-Griffiths take victory by an impressive margin of 4.5 lengths, retaining the Academic Eights Title won in 2018. The crew had recorded clear water margins over Oxford, Cardiff and Birmingham earlier in the regatta and this demonstrated the depth that is developing in the women’s programme at BROOKES|Rowing, with a mixture of experience levels throughout the athletes. Sophia Heath, racing in an U23 Great Britain development crew, beat off international competition from Princeton University

This weekend saw the full Brookes squad racing at the Metropolitan Regatta, which took place at Dorney Lake and provided the squad with good racing against British crews who will be opposition at both Henley Womens Regatta and Henley Royal Regatta in the coming weeks.  In the Men’s Championship Eights, Brookes fielded 5 eights, of which 3 made the A Final to face crews including Leander Club and Molesey Boat Club. The Ladies Plate crew controlled the race throughout, being the fastest crew in every 500. They took the victory by just under a length over our Temple Cup crew, who pushed them hard and finished a length up on

The men’s squad went unbeaten and women’s squad medalled in eight of the nine events they raced over the weekend, in what was a great first step of the regatta season for the whole club.  On Day 1, the men raced in Championship and Intermediate eights. They had won both events every year since 2013, and this year did not disappoint. With two eights in the championship category, the 1st VIII stormed to a seven second victory. However, what made this even more impressive, was that the crew in second place was our 2nd VIII, who finished the race with a clear water margin over bronze medallists Newcastle. This is

The past weekend saw a number of Brookes athletes head to the GB Rowing headquarters at Caversham Lake for the final set of trials for this summer’s World Rowing Senior and U23 Championships. Overall, Brookes had 23 athletes racing across the weekend. The most impressive result was Josh Bugajski, 2019 Head of the River Race and 2017 Ladies’ Plate winner, taking the overall win in the M2- with his partner James Rudkin following a 3rd place finish last season. Current Brookes athletes Rory Gibbs and Morgan Bolding also had their best ever result by finishing 4th- beating 5 Caversham-based pairs in the process. Both these athletes have been part of

Brookes retained the headship for the third year running with an eight second victory over Leander Club at this years Eight’s Head, this is testament to the work these athletes have put in and showcases how in only 7 months the new Oxford Brookes Olympic Pathway Programme is already working. Oxford Brookes had 2 national team members in their boat while Leander club had 7 plus the cox of the national team. The 2nd VIII finished 3rd, finishing just 0.1 seconds behind Leander A. They hold their third position from last year for next year’s Head- the highest placing a Brookes 2nd VIII has ever achieved and very nearly helping

In the final week of preparations for Eight’s Head, Brookes returned to the Tideway this Sunday in a rescheduled fixture against two crews from Cambridge University. In addition to this, fixtures were also arranged against Imperial College and Thames Rowing Club. For each fixture, the pieces ran from the Boat Race start to Chiswick Steps, and then from Chiswick Steps to the Finish. In the first fixture of the day, the 4th VIII raced Thames RC. Thames won the toss and chose the Surrey side for the first piece. Both crews started strong, but it was Brookes who managed to make the first move, and by Barn Elms were able to

After a number of cancellations over the past couple of weeks due to difficult conditions on the Tideway, the BROOKES|Rowing Men’s 1st and 2nd VIIIs finally got racing in a rescheduled Boat Race fixture against Oxford University yesterday. This annually forms an important part of Brookes’ build up to Eights Head, and they were looking to repeat last year’s result where they beat both Oxford and Cambridge’s Blue Boats and Reserve Crew with their respective counterparts. In both the Blue Boat and Isis fixtures, the first piece ran from Chiswick Steps to Beverley Brook at the start of the Putney hard, with the second piece also starting at Chiswick Steps,