Oxbridge Crews Come Out On Top at Diamond Jubilee Rowing Champs
The CUBC won both the men’s coxless fours and men’s eights, while OUWBC won the women’s university/U23 eights, at the Diamond Jubilee Rowing Championships, held over the weekend on the Olympic course at Dorney Lake.
The Diamond Jubilee Rowing Championships was a one-off opportunity to celebrate an incredible year for Rowing, after Team GB’s most successful Olympic regatta ever. The event used a new format to be used in future GB National Rowing Championships. Crews raced a 1,900m time trial, the results of which determined semi-finals A/B, C/D. As in Olympic racing, the top 3 crews in each semi raced in the final.
The CUBC entered four coxless fours and two eights. The CUWBC entered two coxless fours and two eights, and the OUWBC entered an eight. No OUBC crews raced over the weekend.
On Saturday, all of the Cambridge fours took to the water. The top ranked CUBC crew contained the stern three of the 2012 Blue Boat (Niles Garrett, Alex Scharp and Steve Dudek) together with 2013 President and Olympic coxless pairs medallist George Nash. They were the fastest crew in the time trial, and comfortably won both their semi-final and final. The CUBC ‘B’ crew, containing four newcomers to the CUBC squad, took the bronze medal, narrowly beaten by a Leander lightweight international crew.
In the women’s coxless fours competition, CUWBC ‘B’ took the silver in the B final, ranking them as the third fastest Women’s University/U23 crew. Their ‘A’ crew raced in the Open competition, and were ranked 7th overall.
A stiff crosswind from the north on the Sunday made conditions trickier for the eights. CUBC ‘B’ won the B-final by a third of a length. This ranked them 7th overall in eights and placed them 2nd in University/U23 eights behind Imperial College. In the A-final, CUBC ‘A’ faced strong competition from a Leander crew, including Olympic medallists Alex Gregory and Ric Egington. The damage was inflicted in the third 500m, as CUBC stretched away to lead by almost a length, maintaining this lead to the finish as they held off Leander’s late charge.
The OUWBC and CUWBC women’s eights faced off against each other for the first time in the Open final on Sunday. OUWBC came out on top of their Light Blue rivals, finishing 3rd, while CUWBC ‘A’ finished 6th. CUWBC ‘B’ finished 2nd in the B final. OUWBC were ranked 1st in the Women’s University/U23 category, with CUWBC ‘A’ taking 3rd place and CUWBC ‘B’ in 4th.
The 2013 BNY Mellon Boat Race will take place on 31st March 2013 at 4:30pm. The Newton Women’s Boat Race will be raced at Henley a week earlier, on 24th March.
