Sculler’s Head of the River 2008: Imperial secured four first place category wins and four placings in the top 12 at this year’s Sculler’s Head of the River. Imperial had a blistering performance winning pennants at all levels. George Whittaker, Simon Hislop, Ole Tietz and Adam Gray won convincingly in their categories of S1, S3, NV and VetA while Dan Cadoux-Hudson and Erica Thompson secured impressive runner-up positions.
Imperial had two entries in the veteran categories with the result of the day from Adam Gray who won the VetA division in 22:23.64. This was a successful year’s racing for Gray who came second in VA single sculls in Kingston a few weeks ago. Gray had plenty of reasons to get through the course as quickly as possible. “I had a new fan cheering me on – my 3 month old daughter Iris. She has kept me up a lot making weekend mornings tough, but she cooperated the night before letting me get some sleep!”
There was more family drama in the VetD category where alumnus sculler Bill Bradbury was obviously distracted by starting immediately ahead of his 18 year old son Harold. Bill rowed into a green buoy while trying to avoid impeding his son. Harold (who also sometimes rows for the College), on the other hand, sculled well finishing 43rd putting him 2nd in the Junior category. Bill’s 16 year old son Edmund, who has previously raced and won mixed doubles events with Captain Erica Thompson, also had a good day finishing 52nd overall.
Thompson herself was narrowly pipped to pole position in the W.S2 event to L. Muir of Tideway Scullers, missing out on a pennant by just 1.4 seconds. On the way up to the race start Thompson got her blade caught on a rock near the crossover and began to take on water over the side of the boat. As she recovered stability it crossed her mind that the only thing more embarrassing than falling in would be to lose by 1.4 seconds. Despite her own disappointment Thompson is pleased for the club: “The boys did really well and to have 4 scullers in the top 12 as well as 4 category wins is a real message to the other tideway clubs that ICBC means business this year.”
The wins she refers to are from household names Simon Hislop in the S3, Ole Tietz in the NV and last year’s overall winner George Whittaker in the S1. This was a momentous occasion for novice sculler Tietz having only sculled a handful of times before the race. Not only did he win and come 12th overall beating off many elite scullers but this was the first outing he managed to avoid capsizing. There was initial panic before the start when Tietz went to take his boat for a pre-race paddle but found an empty rack. Tietz had to borrow another boat and was unimpressed having to prostitute himself to modern advertising without the consolation of free kit. Despite the untold shame his results are truly an inspiration to all the novices this year.
The women’s squad had solid results despite only a few sculling training sessions since the focus has been on sweep rowing this term. Ro Smith was taking hints from Whittaker on buoy “avoidance” and hit the barn elms buoy. Smith was heading straight for another when former crewmate W.S3 competitor Mel Wilson gave warning as she overtook Smith on her way to win the category. Sister Nicky Smith came third in the W.S3 in 23:45.16 while Claire Waterworth came out of retirement to fulfill her destiny as Steve’s protégé. Unfortunately catching a chest infection from pikey patients at St. Marys proved detrimental to performance and she finished 8th in her category.
Meanwhile lightweights Andy Gordon, Alex Gillies and James Wedlake finished 4th, 8th and 11th respectively in the S3.LWT event. Having not eaten for three days to make the weigh-in Gillies downed a can of red bull before the start sending him off at blistering pace through the course.
Brook McLaughlin in the NV event recalls a moment of panic as scullers lined up for the race start. A few lengths past Barnes Bridge McLaughlin looked behind to see a lady-sculler in a bit of bother. She had managed to get her bows across the stream and was now drifting apparently helplessly towards the bridge. As she approached the bridge another sculler was entangled and both were quickly drifting towards the buttress. There were no marshalls in sight. As a dangerous bottleneck formed mayhem ensued with scullers frantically trying to get out of the way. Describing himself as a ‘cool-headed Irishman with a penchant for shouting at people’, McLaughlin took charge. For the next few minutes there was a lot of stern sounding Northern Irish barks echoing from under the bridge including an instruction for the entire division to “back it down”. With order restored the distressed lady-sculler regained control of her boat. McLaughlin was reflective about the incident: “It’s a bit of a reminder to keep your wits about you when both on the Tideway in small boats, and when marshalling before races.”
When questioned about his performance McLaughlin replied: “Well other than a whole lot of pain and trying to look good for the cameras, there's not a whole lot to say about the race.”
By Christina Duffy