This weekend will see UBBC co-hosting BUCS Fours and Eights Head on the Gloucester Canal for the first of three years. The club will be working alongside BUCS to deliver the event, co-ordinated by events officer Elias Kassel-Raymond, applying many of the aspects involved in hosting UBBC Head but on a significantly larger scale. As this is a new course for BUCS Head, a guide for the full length course and marshalling areas has now been released on the UBBC YouTube Channel, and it is strongly recommended that steerspersons and coxswains watch it through to familiarise themselves with the course.
Saturday will see our novice squad racing on the shorter course. The women will be fielding crews in the beginner coxed four, quad and eight across the two divisions, and will be looking to emulate last year’s victory in the beginner coxed fours. The men’s entries consist of two coxed fours, a quad and an eight, and with a strong squad this year they could definitely be in the hunt for medals. The whole squad has been working in small boats to make further technical progressions since their last race at Stourport and will be very excited to race at one of the major student events of the year.
The senior squad spent the weekend training at Dorney lake, with our women in a fixture against Oxford University Women’s Lightweight Rowing Club. Having made a few changes from the crews that raced in Quintin, as well as a change in boat for the second eight, the men’s 1st and 2nd eights will be looking to lay down a mark in the championship and intermediate categories respectively. Having finished 6th last year, the 1st eight will be looking to close the gap to the high performance programs of the likes of UL and Edinburgh. The men have also entered into the lightweight and championship coxless fours events, as well as the intermediate coxed fours. The lightweight four will no doubt be targeting a second consecutive medal in this event and the championship four have been getting ready to prove themselves against some of the best student fours in the country.
The senior women have put two eights into the women’s intermediate eights, with the 1st eight looking to finish in the medals for the second year in a row. The women will also be well represented on the fours front, having entered the championship and lightweight coxless fours and the championship and intermediate coxless fours. With a number of athletes returning from the eight that took gold at the EUSA games last summer spread across the boats, there is definitely potential for multiple medals to be brought home.
Keep an eye on both UBBC’s social media for further updates on the racing this weekend, the whole club is very excited to be hosting an event on a scale as big as this.