Green Gold Rush at BUCS Rowing Regatta

A 70 man squad of novices, seniors and coxswains were well represented with 36 entries across men’s, women’s, intermediate, championship and lightweight events making 24 AB finals, 11 finals and taking home 6 medals. The 1^st medal of the weekend came from the Exeter women’s lightweight 8 (S. Duncan, I. Lingard, S. Ackert, F. Thomas, E. Armstrong, L. Taylor, I. Pike, I. Potterill, O. Fothergill) who took home the silver with a fantastic performance in the final. Other headline results on day 1 included Matt Bladen in the intermediate lightweight single scull where he narrowly missed out on a place in the A final but overcame the disappointment to win the B final.

It was double gold for High Performance Programme (HPP) athlete and bursar Izzy Lingard who took the title in the lightweight intermediate women’s single scull and the lightweight double alongside University of Exeter Sports Scholar and GB U23 athlete Susannah Duncan.

Izzy commented “There’s great Exeter history in this event with alumni Hannah Traylen and Jess Elkington among previous winners. For me and Suzy to add this title was great and winning the single was an added bonus”

Susannah added “I am particularly pleased with winning the lightweights women's championship double because it is renowned for being the toughest event in lightweight rowing. This year, all the top U23s in the country were in the final too including Oxford Brookes, Cambridge, Nottingham.  Izzy and I had a phenomenal race from start to finish. It means so much to pull off the perfect race that you've been training for over two years for, knowing that you both put your all into every stroke and to do it with your best friend / housemate is the most incredible feeling. That final is probably one of, if not my best races ever!”

Across the weekend successful debuts from the men’s beginners coxed 4 who finished 5th in the A final and the beginners women who won the B final provided some great 1^st time racing experience for a number of club members who were completely new to rowing at the start of the academic year.

There were 3 bronze medals one from Susannah Duncan in the women’s lightweight championship single, the second from Seun Olusanya in the women’s intermediate single who missed out on silver by less than a second and the third in the women’s lightweight coxless 4 (S. Duncan, I. Lingard, F. Thomas and E. Armstrong). This capped off Exeter’s medal haul and a fantastic weekend of racing.

Overall the University of Exeter Boat Club provisionally finished 4th in the women’s Victor Ludorum and sneaked into the top 10 in the overall Victor Ludorum table-a brilliant result for the club and rowing at Exeter. The Boat Club now look towards preparing for Henley with Henley Women’s Regatta running from the 16th-18th June and Henley Royal Regatta taking place from 28th June-2nd July.