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!