A message from the mighty Treynolds, the Lower Boat’s Captain:
As the first event of the novice term, to the Corpus novices, Queens Ergs was an opportunity to show the huge amount of power they’d accumulated in the 3-4 weeks of training so far in Michaelmas. Having sweated on the ergs over 500m more times than they could count, the three Corpus crews were all madly keen to show their ability.
Of course, no event is worth doing if it isn’t challenging and the women’s crew decided that they were a bit too well prepared for this one. So, a women dropped out of the crew at the last minute to make things more interesting and was swapped for someone who had never erged before. With this statement about their superiority made, the women set off for the tournament.
The women worked hard, and despite their handicap beat some crews handily. Although I didn’t see their race, I was assured that they had put in a fantastic amount of effort, in true Corpus style. The women had finished by the time the elite squad of the novice M1 arrived.
They were focused. They were ready. Their minds and bodies had been honed and they’d become masters of the art of the erg. Corpus novice M1 turned up at Queens’ to win. With myself and the men’s captain, Chris Meurice, to cheer them on, all eight of the crew poured their heart and soul into smashing their pb’s on the erg. With Meurice’s shouting face about 2 inches from theirs at the catch, the crew were spurred on to put down obscene levels of power. With some fantastic times posted, and some thrilling races on the big screen (when it wasn’t broken), they came 3rd in their division and 22nd out of 37 M1 crews overall. However, the evening wasn’t over: M2 had arrived.
This was no ordinary M2. They’d been chosen to be almost equal in power to M1 and were looking to prove that Corpus times are quick times. M1 and myself took to the gallery to cheer them on, while Captain of boats Dan Ham, and Treasurer Pete Matthews took on the shouting roles. The crew shot out of the blocks, with fast times all round. Despite some members of the crew taking a rest halfway through their erg, the Corpus boat was never far from the front of the race. After another great performance, M2 matched M1′s feat of coming 3rd in their division and an impressive 9th out of 35 M2 crews. After this great effort, both crews and myself retired for pizza, beer and quiet reflection on our rowing abilities.
To summarise, I was very pleased with the performance at Queens’ ergs. Everyone worked as hard as they could and had a great time. However, the term was still young, and the next race would be on far less solid ground…