Hugh Wilman reports on the novice men's success at Reading Amateur regatta this weekend. Please you read. Che quia. 

The start of the novice men’s campaign for some long –overdue silverware on Saturday got off to a rather nervy start. The ever-dependable crew photographer and 7-man Giles ‘Granddad’ Mortimer turned up uncharacteristically late for the train, causing Lucy Osbourn a mild panic attack and prompting speculation from some that it was a sign of bad things to come. They could not however have been more wrong…

Novice cherry popped. Great success! Photo courtesy of Giles Mortimer

A warm and sunny weekend set the scene for yet another set of cracking results from IC at the Metropolitan regatta.

As Ice Cube once said, ‘Today was a good day’. Non-student mens 8 & women’s IM1 8. Photo courtesy of Ella Taylor

IC once again brought home the bacon at BUCS regatta, capturing the Men’s Victor Ludorum and finishing 2^nd in the medals table over the three days and finishing with the most BUCS points of any university in the country (again) despite the absence of big lad Henry ‘gully’ Gooder and token chopper Ben Spencer-Jones.

The big BUCS extravaganza began as always after half the squad had just finished their exams and the other half were beginning the next week. Only one thing was on everyone’s mind – knocking Durham off the top of the overall victor ludorum. Not to win it for themselves but just to ruin any foundation to Durham’s claim that they are ‘The most successful undergraduate rowing programme in the country’ (lol good one lads).

Just the boiz really, isn't it?

The trip began with a convoy of 3 minibuses filled with mens squad, womens squad and novice women, in the aptly named Willy wagon, Pussy wagon and Hobbit wagon and after an (for once) entirely uneventful journey, which required some big tunes and large amounts of French abuse to drivers Paul Jones and Fabien Evrard to liven things up a bit, arrived late on Friday evening in Nottingham.

The 8s head of the river is usually the climax of the head racing season. IC’s 5 men’s 8s rocked up on what appeared to be quite a calm and pleasant morning with just a light breeze for the pre-paddle. However, as the crews boated for the race, said light breeze changed to a screaming head wind. As the tide turned, things went from bad to worse, and the inevitable white horses started to appear and the river became like the North Sea. Fortunately, Brian Steele has recently returned to coach at IC again and so all crews were well prepared for the immense wash throughout the course and were not even phased unlike the vast majority of crews.

 Every year ICBC men’s squad (and occasionally the ladies when it doesn’t coincide with WeHORR) make a pilgrimage to Amsterdam to take on the Heineken Roeivierkamp. I have absolutely no idea what this actually means but the race is over 2 days and comprises a 2.5k and 250m race on day 1 and a 750m and 5k race on day 2. Each crew’s average 250m split is taken for each race and combined to give an overall score, and the crew with the lowest score crowned the winners. It has taken me four years to actually work all of that out (I have definitely worked this out after 4 years and did not just copy Rozza’s article from last year). This year was made all the more competitive with the presence of two 8s from local rivals UL to take on the 1st student and non-student 8s, as well as a Swiss national team 8 containing Switzerland’s Tom Daley equivalent and IC groupie, Barnabé Delarze.

After a long 8 hour journey in 3 separate buses, everyone settled in to the ever classy accommodation. Unfortunately, a blow was immediately dealt to the 1st 8 as big dog 3-time Henley winner Andy Halls wandered in to the room wandering what the best way to clean his vomit up out of the floor, toilet and sink was.

However, all was not lost as Dutch super sub Dutch breh Greenio* stepped up to fill big Andy’s big shoes. Racing kicked off with the 2.5k, with the 1st student 8 crushing UL 1 by 0.1 seconds and the non-student 8 tearing UL2 a new one by 9.6 seconds, placing them 7^th (07:31.0) and 4^th (07:42.0) in their respective categories. In the first of a series of unfortunate events for the 2^nd student 8, Sam Hewgill showed why he earned this year’s Golden Bucket award, catching a boat stopping crab putting them 12^th overall (08:11.5).

 ALLEZ LES BLEUS! Student 2nd 8 bring it home