Huge congratulations to W1 who won blades and a spot in the top five at this year’s Summer Eights. The crew went into the week hungry to climb the rankings, and they delivered from day one.
For anyone unfamiliar with how Oxford rowing works, bumps racing is pretty unique. The Isis is too narrow for normal side-by-side racing, so boats line up in a long queue and chase each other instead. The goal is to catch up to, or bump, the boat ahead. Once you get a bump, the two teams swap places in the queue for the next day of racing.
Winning blades is the ultimate goal at the regatta. It means a crew successfully bumped the boat ahead of them on every single day of the event without ever getting bumped themselves. This pushes Magdalen W1 up to 5th in the river, equalling their highest position secured in 2013.
Beyond W1, our squads battled hard across seven divisions in a brutal final day of racing. Whether fighting to hold their positions on the river, navigating chaotic division restarts, or clocking up experience for our newer rowers it was brilliant to see everyone out on the river, especially in such good weather.
M1 finished 10th in Division I after getting caught by Teddy Hall, W2 finished the week at 7th in Division IV after a bump from Linacre II and M2 were chased down by Worcester II. In Division VII, W3 rowed over and finished right in 9th, while W4 climbed one spot to 12th after overtaking St Anne’s III in the standings.
Congratulations to everyone who did the early mornings on the river, the hours on the ergs, and rowed hard for their College. Well done to all, and see you at next year’s Summer Eights.