Results and reports by Event

TL;DR:

Ferdi reports:

In the words of the great poet, Wiz Khalifa

"Black and yellow

Black and yellow

Black and yellow

Black and yellow

Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is

Everything I do, I do it big"

The haters doubted us, but is just what M1 did that fateful day on December 2nd in the 2022 Fairbairn Cup, finishing 3rd amongst college VIIIs, in what can only be described as a "big shift".

Full story:

Sam reports:

Finally we were here. The biggest event of the term. The Fairbairn Cup. What had been an interesting term for M1, ups and downs, many uncertainties, but all round good chat, was to be put on display that morning. Setting the tone early we had our best paddle of the term down to the start line. Not too much pre-race stiffness but a hell of a lot of pre-race focus. We knew going into this term we weren’t the biggest of crews, so we had to rely on our clean rowing as one to get us through the race and not only worry about making the boat move faster, but making sure we don’t make the boat slower. We set off from the rolling start, it felt slow, it wasn’t. We had just become comfy at speed. With some expert lines through the boathouses from Phil we felt light, we felt springy, we felt hungry. We came round Cantabs boathouse and I saw the look in Phil’s eyes that only means one thing; she could see the boat ahead, Queen’s, already. From just a simple nod from cox to stroke we knew it was game on at this point. We came under Green Dragon bridge and we sat up and we sent it. All 9 dialled in on one rhythm. There was nothing that was going to take our focus away from the job at hand. In all of our preparation outings and erg visualisations we were told the stretch from the P&E down to the Reach was going to feel long, well I can tell you one thing, at that speed it doesn’t. Coming round Ditton to the Plough we could feel Queens in front of us, we could smell them. This just added fuel to the burning yellow fire inside of us. I knew it was going to happen at the worst possible time, we were going to catch them in the gut. The screams from the bank of Gripper telling Queens to take the outside of grassy were short lived as they cut make inside in front of us. Phil resisted the urge to take the perfect bumps line and smash into their stern, but instead had to bite in and bring us within a whisker of the bank. Losing speed from this turn and having overlap down the gut meant one thing; we’d have to go the long way round. But I can tell you now if there one thing the men and woman of Clare Boat Club aren’t afraid of doing, it’s going the long way round. First post, outside line, just pure rowing pornography. One by one we had Queen’s in our peripheral, and each person seeing them just absolutely kicked it. With this 8 fold step on of acceleration we simply walked through them in one of the most convincing overtakes you will ever see. Now it was payback time. We had 200m to give them as much wash as they gave us for 1.5k, and oh my did we send it down to them. I had never felt this boat move like this, let alone after 4.5k. I could see shock waves forming on the riggers, Grip shouting never reached our ears due to the speed we were travelling, I could see sparks on the stern as we approached 88mph. And then across the line. A full crew of 9 all tested to their limits and every single one excelled. After a clustered bank up and some cheering on of M2 and W2 we pushed off for the row home. As we went to row on Queens decided to push out into us, and if we hadn’t caused enough humiliation already a simple ‘Queen’s you’ve already impeded us once today, would you mind not doing it twice’ would surely do the trick. Later that afternoon the results were in. 3rd. Fastest. College. We were shook, we knew we’d given it our all but I think we were all taken aback by the news. We could hold our heads high that the commitment and the focus all term had paid off. I can tell you this will only fire us up for Lents, with a big Christmas ahead we’re looking forward to being on the front foot from day 1. And as a captain, I couldn’t be more proud of our rag tag bunch of boys who have finally become oarsmen.

Uploaded Sunday 11th December, 18:28

Ferdinand Zoettl reports:

In the words of the great poet, Wiz Khalifa

"Black and yellow

Black and yellow

Black and yellow

Black and yellow

Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is

Everything I do, I do it big"

The haters doubted us, but this is just what M1 did that fateful day on 2nd December in the 2022 Fairbairn cup, finishing 3rd amongst college VIIIs, in what can only be described as a "big shift".

Uploaded Sunday 11th December, 17:36

Ani reports:

W1 started off Fairbairns with a strong build to rate 36. Stefan’s calls for length then saw us settle into a comfortable rate 33 for the rest of the race. We finished as the 10th fastest women’s VIII with a time of 17:42, which the crew was very happy with!! With Ella feeling inspired by the men’s 3rd place in Fairbairns and Hanna already strategising for bumps, bring on Lent!

Uploaded Sunday 11th December, 16:15

Louis Bosnell reports:

M2 got off, as it always does, to a wobbly start. But after a few minutes and with the rate dropping down to a more manageable 30 or so, we were off to a firey start. The first third flew by and with the help of Molly’s racing lines we were on the reach at a speed unknown in this term of novice traffic. The spirit of Ben possessed Issei and he was suddenly a bowsider, slotting so perfectly into the other side that we were left wondering if Ben was actually in the boat after all.

Gapping Sidney, who looked to be out of range of even a Gripper bike throw, gave the boat a fresh bit of speed and we quickly caught up with the Corpus Mario’s and Luigi’s. Pursuing them by half a length all the way up the reach, their novice cox’s wavy line prevented us from going for the overtake, and despaite our best efforts - including Molly telling us that “gorgeous gorgeous boys row Fairburns” - we sat in their wash for the final third.

The attempt to up the rate on the final 300 m produced a handful of mini crabs, at least 4 different rhythms and the noise of 8 men grunting in unison. It goes without saying that the end wasn’t the cleanest, but if we weren’t pretty or precise we sure were powerful, coming in with a very respectable 16.59. Although we would’ve been quicker if we hadn’t been weighed down by Justin’s soya milk in the bows.

As we crossed the finish line a cry erupted from the bows - “Can we have chocolate now?” It seems that all along it was only food that had motivated us to row.

The most notable upsets of the day came on the row back down, as not only was the boat eerily sat, but Jake Scott caught a real zinger of a crab when trying to showboat his Canadian rowing tech abilities.

Uploaded Sunday 11th December, 16:15

Sophie Yaxley McLellan reports:

After 84 minutes of marshaling in the freezing cold (during which we made a ranking of the men's crews with the best chat on the river - shout out to Oxford UNIV) W2 set off at a solid rate 32 past the boat houses, settling into a steady rate 30 by the Green Dragon. It was here we lost one of our valiant soldiers, Lucy P, to a nefarious rock on the tow path and our bank party went down to one. Soldiering on, we faced headwinds over the reach which brought our split up but we remained undeterred. Qing led us round both corners with some expert shortening calls for bow 4, after which we were greeted by the booming voice of Gripper politely informing us there was barely 2 minutes remaining of our race. We were then joined along the bank by M1 whose cheers of encouragement gave us a new lease of life, pushing ourselves to rate 34 as we brought it home with a very respectable time of 19.01. This put us in 5th position, putting Clare W2 in the top 5 for our category! We can't wait to see what we can achieve next term. Sleigh Queens and Merry Christmas!

Uploaded Sunday 11th December, 16:16

Lucas Chaplin reports:

All too quickly, the finale of our Novice careers came with Fairbairns, although it seemed just yesterday that we had first dared to face the Cam. Determined to make a good last show of it, Clare NM1 made sure to give it their all across the whole race distance, although this time the top spots eluded the boys in black and yellow, despite the tightest possible racing line taken by our novice cox. While there were brief accusations of a lack of power from 7, a subsequent inquiry has since cleared his name of any wrongdoing. All in all, a fond farewell to novice rowing from NM1, as they look forward to catching their first crabs as seniors next term.

Uploaded Sunday 11th December, 16:17