student news
Boat camp By John CLarK-maXweLL (2012), BcBc cAPtAin
Pre-term training camps for men and women are made possible by the BCBC Training Fund, which Neville Mullany (1950) started in 2004. Neville asks anyone who would like to help keep the fund topped up – ‘to put something back for the fun we had in BCBC’ – to contact him c/o the Development Office at development@balliol.ox.ac.uk or the postal address on the inside front cover.
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‘Roar lion roar’ was one of the many cheers that resounded around College when Balliol’s novices won the Christ Church Regatta on 30 November 2013, beating Trinity in the final. Floreat Domus met cox toby dirnhuber and stroke Victor Porras, who, like the rest of the winning crew, had started rowing only six weeks or so before, having been persuaded in freshers’ week to ‘give it a go’. winning, Victor said, was ‘so much fun’. their victory, they believed, was vindication of bcbc’s new policy of giving the novices a professional coach; and it was all the sweeter as the crew had lost to trinity in the semi-finals of the nepthys regatta only the week before. fighting back from that, in the last week before the christ church regatta they reached a point when ‘everything just clicked’. beating the favourite, christ church, in the last ten strokes in the quarter-finals – ‘we pulled ahead towards the end to sneak through to the semi-finals by half a boat length’, said another crew member, louis chambers – was also a key moment.
the crew paid tribute to their ‘extremely dedicated’ coach, nick fulton, who from the beginning had concentrated on developing power as well as technique. they also expressed their appreciation of John clarkmaxwell, bcbc’s captain, for all his work and encouragement. John was delighted to see the ‘raw talent’ of all the new recruits being translated into ‘people enjoying themselves’ on the river. Victor, for one, had discovered the satisfaction of being part of ‘a very interdependent team where no one is the only star of the show’ while louis said: ‘it’s amazing to have the opportunity to go from being a complete novice to racing in christ church in a matter of weeks. it’s a real testament to balliol that it trains people so well.’ their win had motivated them and 20 other novices to carry on rowing the following term – an unusually large number that bodes well for bcbc’s future.
Alix Baldwin
For most of the squad, the pre-Michaelmas Term training camp was our first boat camp at Balliol, and we did not know what to expect. Over five days we were to be coached by Peter Haining, in his last week with Balliol before heading to new things, and by Nick Fulton, our new coach. The aim was to make the technical changes necessary for us to jump from being good second boat rowers to being able to compete for places in the first boat. Typically we started the day with a session in fours on the water, changing the crews round every day and training side by side. Next we went either to the OUBC tank or to the gym, where there was an exciting sense of teamwork: you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have to push yourself, because the man next to you is doing that too. In the tank we focused on taking the stroke one element at a time, breaking it down and paying attention to every detail – hard work mentally as well as physically, but always encouraged by the expert eye of the coaches. In the afternoon there was another session on the water, often in the eight, focusing on pulling together and introducing some race pressure pieces to get the adrenaline pumping. Dinner together was next on the schedule, and then some well-earned rest. At the end of the week, we took a boat to the Reading Small Boats Head. Taking part in the IM3 4+ category (coxed fours with experience but no major wins), in a time trial format, gave us our first racing of the season. It was a long race, of some 4,700 metres, with competition coming from Reading Rowing Club and Eton. Hitting a good rhythm early, we kept strong to the end and came second, behind the strong Reading crew on their home water but beating both the Eton crews. This was a good result, especially given that for most of the crew it was their first experience of racing outside Oxford, and that we had had less training than the clubs and schools, as our term starts later. Overall, the camp was a great experience and we really enjoyed the time we spent together as a squad. The amount of technical work that is possible in four really focused days of training is worth roughly four weeks of term time, and the resulting improvements in understanding of the sport mean that all subsequent time spent rowing can be spent more effectively.
Christ Church Regatta triumph
The winning crew: bow Matthew Lynch, 2 Giles Gardam, 3 Benedict Simon, 4 Thomas McDonald, 5 Louis Chambers, 6 Laurence Warner, 7 Laurent Stephenson, stroke Victor Porras and cox Tobias Dirnhuber. Substitutes used were Harvey Ellis and Tushar Kelkar, and the coach was Nicholas Fulton.
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