Winning Women's Academic Coxless Four
It was great to kickstart the season on our homestretch with the Fours Head of the River on Saturday 13th October. With one of the largest squads we've had in recent years, Imperial had twelve crews entered. The club achieved a strong set of results across the board, including a win in the women's academic coxless fours event.
The women's squad has grown in size considerably this year and it was great to have four crews competing: three coxless fours and one coxed four. The coxless fours were up against Oxford University and Oxford Brookes in the academic event. The 'A' crew had a good race, somehow managing to avoid sliding off their seats and overtaking a number of quads along the way to take home the win in the event. The 'B' and 'C' crews also rowed well to finish in 4th and 5th position. Despite every possible technical difficulty occurring on their way to the start, the coxed four had a great race to finish 2nd in women's academic coxed fours. It was also nice to see ICBC member Rebecca Shorten racing in a coxless four with Molesey BC after her success in Tokyo this summer.
Men's Championship Coxless Four through Hammersmith Bridge to finish 8th
The first of the men's crews down the track were the championship coxless and coxed fours. It seems we didn't get the memo from the other entries to fill up our crews with Olympians, but we did our best with Casper Woods in his tatty lycra. The boys put in a good start to a promising season, finishing 5th in coxed fours and 8th in coxless fours amongst some strong opposition.
2nd place finishers in the Men's Academic Coxless Four
A number of last year's novices got their first experience of head racing in the academic events. Our three academic coxless fours finished a super 2nd, 4th and 5th in their category, featuring some very tight racing lines through the bridges. It will be great to see these athletes stepping on further throughout the season. The squad also had another great 2nd place finish in academic coxed fours, alongside a 9th place. Finally, some of the keen scullers in the quad raced in the academic coxless quad and put in a good row to finish in 3rd.
It was lovely to see alumni, friends and family at the boat club to support our crews during the event. Thanks as always to the generous support of our alumni, including the donations of the women's coxless four and men's coxed four in recent seasons, that help us to achieve successful results such as these. We're looking forward to another good block of training now ahead of our next race in early 2022 at Quintin Head.
The Men's Championship Coxed Four (equal 5th place)