Celeste
Spring 2023
President’s welcome
Welcome to this Spring 2023 edition of Celeste! Since the Autumn update, the Club has made its way through the darkness of Winter and as of the end of Men’s Head reached the end of the Head season, with strong performances across the board at the Heads of the River, including winning the Beginner Academic Pennant at the Women’s Head of the River.
With a busy block of training ahead in preparation for the summer, we’re delighted to give you this update before we put our heads down and focus on gaining speed for regatta season. Upcoming events include the regular schedule of Scottish Rowing regattas at Strathclyde Park, BUCS Regatta at Nottingham – where we hope to defend our Victor Ludorum title won last year – a trip south to the Metropolitan Regatta in June, another Highland training camp following the successes of our trip to Loch Oich last year, and finally down to Henley for Henley Women’s and Henley Royal Regattas – where we hope to see as many of you as possible at the annual drinks reception at Henley Cricket Club on the Saturday of Henley Royal!
March 31st marks Jim Aitken’s last day as the Director of Sport for Edinburgh University. During his time he has been instrumental in turning EUBC into the powerhouse of UK University rowing that it is today, and I am sure you will all join me in thanking Jim for everything he has done for EUBC, but also the wider sporting community at the University. We were honoured to name the new men’s first eight the “Jim Aitken MBE” at a ceremony at the Old College in recognition of Jim’s efforts over many years. We wish Jim all the best for the future.
BUCS/HORR 2023
Up until the club 5k on the 21st of January, both senior squads had been on a land-based camp to make the most of the poor weather and build up fitness for upcoming racing. Some strong scores set us up well for the return to water training and leading into BUCS head.
As usual on the Tyne, EUBC’s athletes were greeted by some horrendous weather for the first division on the Saturday. Despite some crews narrowly avoiding being sunk by the waves, the men still managed to win the Champ Lightweight 4-. The Women’s eights set a strong precedent for the weekend ahead, as both the Women’s Championship 8+ and Intermediate 8+ took silvers.
In the second division the wind calmed down and allowed the crews to put down some more solid performances. The Men’s 1st eight came away with a Champ bronze medal, keeping their streak of beating Newcastle going for this season. The Men’s Intermediate 8+’s had solid performances, finishing 6th and 16th. The women took to the fours in the afternoon, with the Women’s Championship 4- being the highlight of the afternoon, storming the field to take gold. The Women’s Championship 4+ also took a strong silver medal.
On the Sunday the beginners put in a series of stunning performances as usual. After unforeseen circumstances, the beginner men were unable to race, leaving the beginner women to demonstrate the strength of the programme. They went on to storm the entire field, taking gold and silver in the Women’s Beginner 4+, gold in the Women’s Beginner 4x and gold again in the Women’s beginner 8+. A phenomenal performance from our beginner squad, and the first time any university has swept all gold medals at BUCS Beginner Head.
EUBC at Sports Ball
Recently the club was shortlisted for several awards at the annual sports ball: - Team of the Year: For the Senior Men’s Squad’s Success in 2021-22 - Ian Stevens Alumni Award for Alumni Engagement - Most Distinguished Men’s Athlete: For Dale Flockhart and all his international successes.
EUBC at GB trials
EUBC fielded several athletes from both squads at both November trials and February trials. November Trials
After an enormous number of PBs from the 2k on the Saturday, the athletes were ready to take on the 5k water assessment on the Sunday. In the Women’s Lightweight 1x category, Lily Young put in a strong performance on the water to finish 3rd Under 23 and 4th overall in the Lightweight category. The W1x category saw some very impressive results also as Hannah Supple finished as the 9th U23. Anna Buchanan followed, as the 16th U23. Izzy Clements finished as the 21st U23, followed by Claudia Rossington who produced the fastest U21 2k the day before, finished as the 26th U23. Charley Faint finished as the 30th U23 and Catriona Taylor finished as the 34th U23. Madeleine Fatani finished 50th U23.
The men also put in strong performances across all the categories in a tough field of competition. In the M1x category, Josh Matthews had a strong race and finished as the 2nd U21, 3rd U23 and 15th overall. Daniel Jones in the LM1x category had a standout performance and finished as the 1st LM. In the M2- category, Harry Fletcher and Oliver Holmes finished 28th overall, followed by Ben Nussey and Andrew Stoker finishing 29th overall.
We also had numerous EUBC alumni competing, putting in very strong performances. James Doran finished 11th overall in the M2-, followed by Laurence Ellis finishing 13th. Perri McCluskey finished 29th overall in the W1x and Alice Ives finished 46th overall.
February Trials
EUBC had 6 athletes go down south with a total of 11 athletes representing the club. In the W1x, Hannah Supple had an impressive run down the course, finishing as 5th U23. Charley Faint followed with 11th U23. Alumni Lucy Glover and Maddie Arlett, representing EUBC, had impressive races finishing 7th and 12th. Ollie Holmes and Andrew Stoker raced the M2- finishing 30th overall. Both Dale Flockhart and Dan Jones, racing in the LM1x category, had strong performances and took 1st and 2nd place.
Alumni Alice Ives, Perri McCluskey and Laurence Ellis were also racing for their respective clubs. The weekend was a great success with solid performances from our athletes and alumni. We are looking forward to the next block of training in preparation for the next round in April.
Inverness Head(s)
In November, the EUBC cohort made the annual trip up the A9 to the highlands for the weekend. As usual it was a cold weekend but our athletes still performed well, coming away with wins in every event we entered. It was a tough but rewarding weekend with our athletes racing twice over both days for some good racing experience.
While the women were down south for WEHORR, the men went up to Inverness for another training weekend at Inverness 8s head. It was again successful with Edinburgh victories in both ranked and matched 8s
BowBall 2023
EUBC was welcomed to The Assembly Rooms for the annual club ball this year, for a successful evening of celebrating the club’s achievements. It was a very enjoyable evening complete with a good cohort of alumni Boat Club Awards (in the form of repurposed trophies from EUBC’s collection) were awarded by Club President, Harry Guy.
Winners were: Male Athlete of the Year Dale Flockhart Female Athlete of the Year Jane Hardie Club Rowing Member of the Year Onur Howie Volunteer of the Year Esther Follis
Womens’ 8s HORR
The women arrived down in Putney the Thursday before the race for the culmination of their head season. This gave coxes and rowers two days of training on the tideway. For some it was just a refresher; for many it was their first time. After two days of preparation, our crews took to the water and rowed to the start in chilly but decent conditions, with a little head wind between the Bandstand and Chiswick.
First off was the First VIII, starting sixth. After a good row, they were timed eighth fastest over the course, a great achievement with two GB crews ahead of them and the usual Leander entries. Later, our crew was given a 10sec time penalty which pushed them to tenth; however, their result was positive in comparison to the usual rivals and bodes well for the racing coming.
The beginner crews started later, with numbers 290 (Edinburgh D) and 293 (Edinburgh C). Both enjoyed good starts and found themselves overtaking, some were sporting and yielded; others were not, forcing them to take the long way round.
With the confirmed results, Edinburgh had secured a unique 1-2 in their category, with 44s between them and a further 50s back to third. Edinburgh C finished 69th with the 2nd highest climb of the day of 224 places; Edinburgh D finished 126th, climbing 163 places. Claiming the Beginner Academic Pennant signs-off a special winter racing period for the beginner women, who had secured a clean-sweep at BUCS Head a few weeks earlier.
HORR
After a long build up, the men were certainly ready to make their crusade down to the tideway. Arriving for a session on the Thursday before the race allowed them to get re-acquainted with the tideway and prepare themselves for the race. The boys were apprehensive as the forecast was not promising, but they prepared themselves anyway.
On the day, they got off lightly with just a smattering of rain and not too windy conditions. Our 1st VIII raced well to placed 16th overall, taking 4th in the University Pennant. This was a great result for our top boat and showed good progress on our opposition from previous races. The boys were especially happy to stay ahead of Newcastle for the second year in a row with Tokyo Olympian James Rudkin in the 5 seat of the Newcastle 8. Our 2nd VIII had a good row to place 41st, and our 3rd VIII did well to get into the top 100 in such a strong year, placing 98th.
We’re very happy with the squads performance in the strongest year seen at men’s head. This leaves the Senior Men in a great position to attack the second half of the season, having made up good ground on our various university opposition. We now look forward beginning our Victor Ludorum defence at the BUCS regatta.
Important dates to keep an eye out for!
HRR reception – Afternoon till late Saturday 1st July Henley Cricket club—tickets will be available on the website soon
Alumni dinner - Evening of 4s head in Putney. More details to come but keep an eye out and calendars free!
Get in touch with EUBC!
Twitter: @EdinburghUniBC
Facebook: @edinburghrowing
Instagram: @edinburghrowing
Email: rowing.alumni@ed.ac.uk
Website: www.edinburghrowing.co.uk