The last event in CCCBC’s competition calendar was, for the second year running, Peterborough Regatta. At this most mighty of regattas there stood two men from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, determined to show off the standard of sculling within the university. This was a task they pulled off with absolute distinction, unfortunately the end results were not quite as satisfying as might have been suggested.
Fresh from Sudbury regatta, AJ entered both the 1000m and the 500m Nov.1x events. The less said about the 1km race the better, but the 500m race was a thing of beauty. In his 1st round, AJ came in a solid second place – seeing off the home-grown competition from Peterborough City and the old man (he was probably nearly 25) from Warwick Grad BC attempting to relive the glory days. AJ had, by his own admission a bit of a slow start, but his instinctively precise blade-work gave him the confidence to power into the semi-finals.
Into his second race of the day, the seven-man of the machine that was Corpus M2 knew he was up against it. In his race was the one and only Guttenplan, hero of Emmanuel College’s University Challenge team and denizen of M1′s Lent Bumps Enemy. Sadly the second race was not to be, perhaps overawed by the god-like being in lane 1, AJ succumbed to faster opposition and exited the competition.
Matthews had finally run-out of doubles partners and was forced to man-up and enter the IM3.1x. The 1km proved to be a little too far for a man who has spent the past year sitting comfortably and telling others to row faster, about 650m too far to be honest. The first part of the race went surprisingly well, but the shock of sitting in second place going through the half-way mark almost certainly resulted in Matthews’ leg drive dropping off and him falling steadily back off the pace. Still, managed to hold off the chap who crashed on the start, so all’s well that end’s well.
Knowing that this could be his final shot at a being photographed racing in a single, Matthews decided to ditch his preferred sculls that he had been training with in favour of the newly painted ones. Unfortunately the measurements were slightly different, which was clearly the only reason why the 500m race didn’t quite go to plan. Typically, there wasn’t even a photographer at the event, sigh.