Saturday 22nd November proved to be a very successful day for UCL Boat Club. It was the day of the Allom Cup, a regatta type event, which all the different University of London Colleges can enter.

The race is about 1,000 metres long, and goes from the University of London boat house, down to Chiswick Bridge.

This year UCL decided to enter seven crews; three men’s’ novice (beginner) crews, an intermediate men’s crew, a senior men’s crew, a novice women’s crew and a senior women’s crew.

In the first round the novice women and one of the men’s novice crews raced extremely well, but unluckily lost narrowly just before the finish. All the other crews got through into the next round. Three of these crews, men’snovice crew, the men’s senior crew and the women’s senior crew,  continued their winning run to get through to the finals. Sadly one of the men’s novice crews were pipped at the penultimate hurdle and got to go to bar early.  

When it came to the finals previous form counted for nothing. After a long day of rowing it’s easy to let concentration slip and qualifying takes its toll on the body and the mind.

UCL women’s senior crew were first up against ICSM (Imperial College School of Medicine). ICSM went off strongly, their strokes were concise and powerful through the water. In comparison, UCL were shallow but as the race progressed they found a rhythm they could match, and stroke for stroke they pulled level only to be beaten at the post by less than a foot.

Tough, but these things happen on the water.

In the second final the men’s novice boys got off to a slow start against LSE and their movement through the water was concise rather than smooth.

Short, powerful strokes punched their boat along but the LSE boat moved smoothly and freshly ahead in the first third before they began to tire. UCL reeled them in, slowly but with an assured confidence wrought from a day out on the water, eventually overhauling their bitter rivals to claim the Allom Cup and, for many of the crew, their first victory at this level.

The last race of the day – the men’s senior final – was never in doubt, not even from the start. RUMS (UCL Medical School) faced UCL. The gulf in class allowed UCL men to get off to a truly dominant start which was continued throughout the race as they pushed for a tremendous victory.

An unbiased report by Franky Gordon-Saker of UCL boat club.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 18:16 and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.