Hilary 2016: from the Men's Captain
With a strong foundation set in Michaelmas, M1 looked towards a successful Torpids. During Hilary, and after crew selection, M1 worked on the water at Godstow and made four weekend trips to Dorney Lake when the Isis and Godstow were red flag. These trips were extremely useful in continuing our training and we're thankful for having the funds available to do so. Unfortunately, due to high stream, our first head race – Henley 4s & 8s – was cancelled and so Torpids came with the crew having little race experience this term.
On day one of Torpids, Brasenose were ahead of us and LMH behind. With confidence in our ability, we went off hard from the start and bumped Brasenose within 45 strokes, just upstream of Donny Bridge. A successful first day gave the crew more confidence going into Thursday where we were chasing Jesus M1 with scores to settle from last year’s dubious bump on us. Again, we went off hard from the start and gained ground on Jesus quickly. Coming out of the gut, the ground we had made was lost due to sharp steering around Pembroke M2 who had already bumped out but were sitting in the optimal racing line. Much to our disappointment the race finished with no bump on Jesus despite being very close. Although, our cox James thought he had saw the Jesus cox concede. With an appeal and evidence from Go-Pro footage, we were awarded the bump and with two races to go blades were in our sight. Day three came and the whole crew was fired up to bump St Anne's. We got the bump on St Anne's just in the gut with another strong effort from the guys. Onto Saturday and the pressure was on to get the fourth bump. With a better and more composed row than the races before, we bumped Lincoln M1 just before the gut and therefore won blades, the first for M1 in seven years.
After an exciting and successful Torpids week, we are looking forward to resuming training and taking on Summer Eights next term.
Reilly Knight
Men’s Captain
Crew
Posted on Apr 20, 2016
posted under: term report
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