On Sunday 8^th of December, QMULBC rowers headed off to Wallingford Head of the River. In the Novice division, the women’s 8 racing in Millennium Mary consisted of (from bow to stroke) Ellie Hanson, Caragh Newman, Elouise Heap, Olivia Tasker, Imogen Millibank, Lucia Harrington, Penny Newson, Aleks Wrona, and Miriam Harbourn as the cox. The novice girls performed well in their first race of the year despite unavoidable clashing with other crews. Their hard work and willingness to improve in the New Year means that the development of the women’s squad is looking very promising.

The Men’s Intermediate-3 category saw the boys heading out, racing in Michael Biggs. The boat consisted of (from bow to stroke) Kieran Hashmi, Toby Barton, Przemysław Klupś, Neil Patel, Matt Mahmoudi, Miles Farrell, Rob Ballantyne, Marcus Yarwood and Miriam Harbourn again as the cox. Although they did not win their category, the men’s senior squad showed potential for what they can do, as a boat made up mostly of novices out performed themselves racing in a category higher than they should have been. Rob Ballantyne, Fresher Captain, expressed his satisfaction after the race: ‘We paced ourselves really well, stayed strong and pulled away during the second half. The last kilometre was really tough, but in the end we managed to get a good time. I was really impressed with the improvement and dedications shown by the freshers.”

With persistent heavy rain and high winds in southern England causing very strong and fast flows in the river Thames and cancelling most of the races, all eyes are now fixed to Kingston Head on 22^nd March and Men’s Head of the River on 29^th of March, where hopefully QM Boat Club can put all of their hard work to good use and honour their club.

The Merger Cup is a series of annual sporting fixtures played between Queen Mary, University of London and the medical school Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. The event has taken place since the merger of the two institutions in 1995.

This year, the date for Merger Cup will be on Saturday 15th March.

 

 

On Saturday 16^th of November, Queen Mary Boat Club headed off to St Mary’s for the British Universities Colleges Sports (BUCS) Indoor Rowing Championships, comprising of a gruelling 2k test.

Andrea Seifert led the way for QM Boat Club, dominating the competition in the Women’s Openweight with an impressive time of 7:44.0, and most of the other QM girls managed to break the 9-minute barrier. The closest individual race within the club was between freshers Imogen Millibank and Penny Newson, which ended in heartbreak for Penny when she was beaten by Imogen by only 1 tenth of a second. Elsewhere, Eloise Heap and Ellie Hanson came in 2^nd and 3^rd place respectively in the Women’s Lightweight category.

In Men’s Lightweight, Marcus Yarwood came in third position with an astonishing time of 6:57.1, and novice Matt Mahmoudi also put in an impressive time in his first 2k. Regarding the Men’s Openweight, Neil Patel and novice Miles Farrell unfortunately could not break the 7-minute barrier and came 6^th and 7^th; however incredible improvements have been made throughout the squad in the recent 2k test held in Qmotion, with an extraordinary progress for Miles who obtained 6:56.5.

Saturday 8th December saw the first of what we hope to be many more Fresher Regattas between Queen Mary, University of London Boat Club and The University of East London Boat Club. Following the successful completion of their Learn2Row courses, our novice rowers competed against one another in crews of five in the lake boats and raced over 750m at our Docklands home. Despite the bitter cold, a great day of sportsmanship and fun was had by all, which ended very sweetly for Queen Mary as our fresher crew captained by Jack Hansford won the regatta with a time of 03:22!

UELBC’s new fleet of four boats was then unveiled to much applause, as the two clubs celebrated a successful partnership with mulled wine and mince pies.

Many thanks to Arran Magee of UELBC for organising the event so professionally, and congratulations to all who competed in a brilliant event.

The weekend 5-7th May was pretty eventful for QMULBC. For the first time in an unknown number of years Queen Mary headed up to the exotic National Watersports Centre at Holme Pierrepont in Nottingham for the 2012 BUCS Regatta.

Holme Pierrepont; renowned for calm waters and 40+ temperatures, seemed to be suffering from some uncharacteristic weather. On Saturday Beginner races were cancelled due to high winds, meaning the only Queen Mary crew competing was the Women’s Intermediate Coxless Pair of Leah Kindleyside and Kate Ryde. Their first heat saw them finish 3rd, thus qualifying for the Repechage, although a 5th place finish unfortunately did not see them through into the final.

Sunday saw the Men’s Intermediate Coxed Four of Oliver Ramsay, Dustin Mackay, Nick ‘Batman’ Charman & Jack Thornton (Leah Kindleyside cox) unfortunately not making it through the time trials.

Monday saw the most eventful of the three days, with heavy fog in the morning causing both terrifying driving conditions for President Dom coming in from Doncaster, but more importantly delaying morning time trials. BUCS officials decided that all events would be time trialed with no seeded crews. The Women’s Intermediate Coxed Four of Leah Kindleyside, Kate Ryde, Sinead Kennedy Krebs & Melissa Mayer (Laerke Blom Madsen cox) were first to hit the water in their unsuccessful attempt to qualify for their final. Next up was Harry Fletcher and Michael Willis in their Men’s Intermediate Coxless Pair, who put in a strong performance but unfortunately did not make the cut.

While results did not go our way, the BUCS Regatta was a large stepping stone for QMULBC in our aim to establish ourselves as a quality university boat club.

Next up is Nottingham City Regatta where QMULBC will be returning to the National Watersports Centre, trading in Sky Sports’ ‘Day of Destiny’ for their own glory. Watch this space…

The weekend of the 27th & 28th November was certainly a busy one for Queen Mary. On Saturday the boys, along with our friends from UEL, headed off to Imperial College for the BUCS 2k test. This is the first BUCS event that QMULBC has entered in recent times, and our men certainly didn’t let us down! Nick ‘Batman’ Charman led the charge with a fantastic 6:22, and most seniors broke the 7 minute barrier. The closest individual race was between Men’s Captain Oliver Ramsay and Club Secretary Liam Barford, which ended in heartbreak for Liam when he got beat by Ollie by just 2 seconds. Had it not been for the fact that we were up against some Leander boys from UEL and the beasts who belong to Imperial College, Batman might have scored us some points, but there’s always the 4’s and 8’s head in February to do that!

Sunday was as much of a logistical challenge as it was a rowing one, as our seniors headed off to Wallingford 4’s and 8’s head. An early departure from uni, and with President Dominic Todd driving a car for the first time in almost 3 years, it was amazing that the day after the BUCS 2k we did as well as we did. In the first division we had 2 women’s IM3 4+, one consisting of Leah Kindleyside, Sinead Krebs, Francesca Bjornflaten, and Melissa Mayer (cox Jen Hakwes), and the other one consisting of Natalie Campbell (UEL), Megan Rose-Rigby (UEL), Harriet Kefford (UEL), and Ruth Faulkner (cox Kseniya Shuturminska). Leah’s 4 came in at 20 minutes 18 second, with the ‘UEL’ 4 coming in with 21 minutes 16 seconds. Not bad results, and an improvement on the previous years time.

The second division saw the boys heading out in their 2 NOV 4+, the first 4 consisting of Oliver Ramsay, Liam Barford, Nick Charman, and Jack Thornton (cox Lindsay Murray), and the second 4 consisting of Harry Fletcher, Tom Paley, Rufus Harding, and James Deacon (cox Sean Simpson). An impressive 17 minutes 38 seconds saw the first 4 come in 2nd for NOV 4+, beaten only by an impressive Eton College crew. The second 4 came in with a time of 19 minutes and 15 seconds, somewhat off the pace but definitely showing promise.

Although we didn’t win any pots, both the men’s and women’s senior squads showed potential for what they can do. All eyes are fixed to January and February, where the real tests lie, and hopefully we can put all of our hard work to good use and bring back some medals!