Officer Bellion recounts Imperial's success at GB trials and BUCS last weekend...
13 turned out to be a lucky number last weekend for Imperial College Boat Club as this was the number of rowers who made their way up to Boston for the first set of national trials; the highest number for a long time. The trials involved a 2km test on the rowing machine on Saturday followed by a 5km time trial in single sculls on Sunday, with the ultimate aim of selecting crews to go to the U23 and senior world championships. The IC rowers knew they would be up against the best in the country and that anything less than the best would not be good enough.
Before the ergo, coach Steve Trapmore gave some words of wisdom to the nervous hopefuls “You are in the shape of your lives so f-ing go for it." In the end it was ICBC Captain Leo Carrington who led by example smashing his person best by 11 seconds to record a time of 6:17. Shortly afterwards he commented “There’s a first time for everything and everything takes time. If you believe you can achieve, in’it”. He was closely followed by Danny Bellion at 6:19 and Henry Goodier at 6:21. Good performances were also put in by two of IC’s new recruits Simon Steele and Rory Sullivan, pulling 6:25 and 6:26 respectively. On the women’s side, Zoe Lee rowed a solid 7:09 [Wearing POD's lycra!] followed by lightweight-turned-heavyweight Mathilde Pauls at 7:17.
And so to Sunday where the rowers were faced with high winds for the singles trial, but as the saying goes: “Nothing to it but to do it”. Solid results came from Leo Carrington (53rd), Dom Meyrick-Cole (51st) and Simon Steele (47th). However sculling protégé Rory Sullivan put in an extremely good performance to come 23rd overall and 3rd fastest U20 giving the older ICBC members something to think about. In the women’s race Zoe Lee came an excellent 12th place. The IC lightweights were also out in force with Jamie Kirkwood finishing a very respectable 9th followed by Alex Gilles (25th) and Gareth Brown (45th). Overall it was an encouraging weekend for the ICBC trialists and the next set is in 2 months time.
The GB trials are also run in conjunction with the BUCS Small Boats Head where plenty of BUCS points were available. Because of this a number of IC rowers arrived on Saturday evening to reinforce the squad for Sunday's racing. Steve Trapmore had high expectations of his crews and they did not disappoint. Imperial came second overall with 62pts behind Durham (72) leaving Reading (46) and Oxford Brooks (30) in their wake. It is an even more impressive result considering that some squad members were ill and an equipment failure cost the women’s lightweight pair an almost certain (I am led to believe) victory. These results demonstrate IC’s strength in depth as good placings were achieved right across the board.
When Steve Trapmore took over at ICBC he told us to “Dare to dream”. It now looks like this year that dream might be realized as the results from this weekend demonstrate that IC is well on its way to being back on top in university rowing with a number of students pushing for national representation. The next event on the horizon is the Fours Head of the River in 3 weeks where once again IC crews will get the chance to test themselves against the best in the country. But for now, it’s back to the river where many more miles await.
Danny Bellion