For Imperial’s rowers, BUCS Head was moved from the metropolitan Boston to the tropical Newcastle this year (a Head race is a rowing time trial, rather than a side by side race). ICBC sent up 22 of our finest athletes to compete on the Sunday, in an attempt to prove that the strength of our squad is defined by quality, not quantity.

After a seven hour drive up to Newcastle on the Saturday morning, there were doubts about the race going ahead at all. The conditions were abysmally windy and choppy during our paddle on Saturday afternoon and we came off the water wet, cold and apprehensive about the racing tomorrow – the forecast was only meant to get worse.

After a hearty meal from some uncomfortably friendly Northerners and a good night’s sleep in the finest accommodation north of the M4, the crews were ready for the first races of the day. The first boat to race the 4700m course was a coxless four of Andrew Halls (Club Captain, 4th year Materials), James Redhead (Civ. Eng. exchange student), Alex Ball (2nd year Mech Eng) and Juha Lepannen (3rd year Mathematics). This crew raced well, navigating the unfamiliar Tyne river to secure a silver medal in their Championship category, behind the home favourites of Newcastle University. The next crew off was a coxed four of Ben Thomas (Environmental Tech. MSc), Toby Heaton (2nd year medic), Tristan Vouilloz (3rd year Mech Eng), Ollie Hines (3rd year Theoretical Physics) and cox Chris Au (Environmental Tech. MSc). This crew managed to do one better than their teammates, beating Edinburgh and Newcastle to win a gold medal.

The final crew in this division was a lightweight (less than 75kg) coxless four of Paul Jones (PhD Biomaterials), Romain Barnoud (PhD Computer Science), Rob McPherson (2nd year Materials) and Myles Holborough (3rd year Materials). The four upheld Imperial’s strong lightweight track record by winning a bronze medal in their category. The afternoon offered more challenges for the rowers. Wind had picked up, meaning that the racing would be slower this time round. It was time to bring out the big guns for the finale of the weekend’s racing – the men’s eights. We had two eights racing at BUCS: one championship eight, contested by British universities for the fastest student eight in the country, and one intermediate eight. Our intermediate eight was made up of people ICBC coached from complete novices at the start of the 2014⁄15 academic year. The crew was Dugald Fraser, Tom Burnell, Jac Reid, Fabio Albertani, Lawrence Jones, Vitaly Delve, Paul Liétar, JT Baird and cox Emily Boother. This eight would be competing against university second eights, because of the ruling against entering more than one boat in a championship event. Our championship consisted of some familiar names: Romain Barnoud, Toby Heaton, Ben Thomas, Ollie Hines, Tristan Vouilloz, James Redhead, Andrew Halls, Myles Holborough and Chris Au. The eight set off second, following Newcastle down the course and brought the prized gold medal home to London! Finally, the intermediate eight put in a storming performance to come 5th when competing against far more experienced rowers.

22 athletes sent up to Newcastle, 22 BUCS medals brought back to London. A good day in the office for ICBC and it bodes well for the rest of the season!

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