Boat Races and Bumps: Round-up of rowing news

Selection news: Men’s Lightweight Boat Race on 20 March

Three St Catharine’s students have been selected for the Cambridge crew in the 49^th Men’s Lightweight Boat Race on the Championship Course in London:

• Joe Holey, a Maths PhD student, will row in the 4 seat after rowing with the St Catharine’s College Boat Club over two years and four Bumps campaigns.
• Thomas Heppel, a second-year Psychological and Behavioural Sciences undergraduate, will row in the bow seat and represented St Catharine’s in the 2022 May Bumps campaign.
• Lewis Gray, a first-year Geography undergraduate, has been selected as stroke in his Fresher year.

Anyone wanting to support Joe, Thomas and Lewis can watch the race live at London Rowing Club on Putney Embankment from 10am on 20 March, or watch the livestream at https://www.lightweightboatraces.co.uk/video

Selection news: Men’s Boat Race on 26 March

A Chemistry PhD student who stayed on after completing his undergraduate studies, Matt Edge (2018, Natural Sciences) has been selected to row at bow for the Cambridge men's crew in the 168th Boat Race. This means that Matt will be the first man across the finish line at the end of the Championship Course in London if Cambridge wins.

Clare Hole, a third-year Natural Sciences undergraduate, has also been selected to represent Cambridge in the 48th Women's Reserve Race. She will row in the 5 seat in the Blondie boat and be hoping to build on 2022 when she was in the 3 seat for the sixth consecutive victory for the Blondie boat.

For anyone wanting to cheer on Matt, Clare and the Cambridge crews racing on 26 March, advice and information about official fan parks is available from https://www.theboatrace.org/spectator-information. BBC1 coverage will be broadcast from 3.30pm.

Racing news: Women’s Eights Head of the River Race (WeHORR) on 4 March

St Catharine’s College Boat Club has not entered WeHORR since 2018 but the hard work of our students meant that we were in good enough shape to enter this year.

Carmen Failla, Head Rowing Coach and Boathouse Manager, said:

“The Catz women worked hard to earn their place at WeHORR and rowed well on the day. They gained 30 seconds on the last Catz WeHORR crew and moved up from 242 to 181 place.”

Racing news: Lent Bumps on 7–11 March

After a week of poor conditions on the Cam and cancellations for several races:

W1 finished 17th in Division 1 (-3)
M1 finished 15th in Division 1 (-3)
W2 finished 9th in Division 3 (-1)
M2 finished 10th in Division 3 (-4)

Carmen commented, “We have a young but enthusiastic club, with many students racing for the first time during Lent Bumps. They put up a good fight and rowed sensibly in tough conditions, which avoided any damage to our boats. It is also worth noting that we had enough committed women in the Boathouse to field up to four boats – W3 and W4 were unable to get on to Bumps after completing the Getting On race but to have that many rowers is fantastic and bodes well moving forward.”