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A new winner of the VL at BUCS Regatta

The full spectrum of British weather was in force at Holme Pierrepont in Nottingham over the bank holiday weekend, which played host to the BUCS three day regatta.

Racing took place despite predicted inclement conditions, and race controller James Lee spoke of his delight at the fact that the event went ahead as planned. “Earlier this week I didn’t think we’d get much racing done this weekend. I’m delighted with how much we managed to run,” he said shortly after the event finished on Monday. “BUCS Regatta is a massive team effort and it is a huge honour to be part of that team. Thank you to the thousands of students for providing some amazing racing – I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!”

Newcastle University Boat Club (NUBC) took home the overall Victor Ludorum after winning a range of medals across the disciplines, including gold in men’s championship quads, women’s intermediate eights, men’s lightweight quads and the men’s lightweight four. President of NUBC, Barnaby Stroud-Turp, was pleased with their performance. “It was a great weekend for us, as the whole club had some brilliant results,” he explained. “It’s an amazing achievement to top it all off with the Victor Ludorum. It is the first time we’ve ever won it, and it really shows how we’ve developed as a club over the years. Our strength in depth and uptake has improved enormously.”

Oxford Brookes University demonstrated their dominance in the bigger boats by securing gold medals in both the championship men’s and women’s eights. “Winning the championship eights has always been a focus for our club,” explained Head Coach Henry Bailhache Webb. “We added our 17th title in the men’s event and the women’s row was a huge step forward.”

“BUCS Regatta is a massive team effort and it is a huge honour to be part of that team…”

The University of London (UL) pipped the University of Exeter in the women’s rowing over the weekend, by securing the female Victor Ludorum on gold medal count as both universities secured 432 points apiece. A notable performance from UL was their championship women’s eight who won bronze in an excellent field, tussling to the line with a Cambridge University crew who carried former Boat Race athletes.

There was some stunning racing in the lightweight events, as junior world champion and Heriot Watt athlete Gavin Horsburgh edged out stiff competition from former Henley winner Tim Richards and Durham University athlete Hugo Coussens. Whilst in the women’s events Susannah Duncan and Isabel Lingard from Exeter University performed exceptionally well to win the women’s lightweight eight, the lightweight women’s quad and securing silver in both the lightweight double and pair. The latter of the two events were won by the Edinburgh University pairing of Maddie Arlett and Robyn Hart Winks.

Full race results can be found here:

Report by: Tom Morgan

Photo by: Maks Orzel