CCBC - News - Head of the River Race 2001

Tideway - The ultimate crew bonding experience!

17th March 2001

St Paul's School It seemed like the "How many students can you fit into a Mini Cooper?" stunt at the end of the Epiphany term as assorted rowers, blades, bags, and one Men's Captain's Dad, squeezed into a minibus for a road trip down the A1. Approximately 5 hours and 4 packets of biscuits later the 1st and 2nd VIIIs arrived in the capital wondering where all the hills had gone.

The next day saw a training outing from St Paul's School where the squad were based and the crews' first chance to tame the beast that is the River Thames. The outing seemed at first to be more of a sightseeing trip - "And on your right you will see the Riverside Studios where TFI Friday was filmed...". The order of the evening was carbo-loading, and two plates (or three for some) of pasta later, the squad retired to their bunks thinking of the early morning the next day.

Very early on the day of the race, 3500 rowers and their coxes awoke and remembered that they had committed themselves to 7.5 km of rain, wind and debilitating pain. Arriving at St Paul's boat house, and being passed by members of the Italian national brought home the scale of the event. The celebrity spotting continued as the 2nd VIII boated. The first boats were just passing under Hammersmith Bridge and the red face of one Matthew Pinsent stood out clearly.

The race itself was different for each of the Collingwood crews. The 2nd VIII were quickly caught by the following crew from Broxbourne, but were able to hold them off for almost 5km until the finish when they finally overtook. This spurred the crew on enough to enable them to overtake two boats including the 2nd VIII of St Cuthbert's Society, Durham. The 1st VIII had a lonely race, but dispite having no crews to push them on, they still managed to finish as one of the top crews from Durham. The 2nd VIII finished the day as the fastest college 2nd VIII from Durham - a tremendous achievement considering that over half the crew had only been rowing for two terms.

For the record the 1st VIII came in 276th in a time of 20:20.20, with the 2nd VIII coming in at 20:39.27 in 308th. A week later the Mortlake-Putney course would be used in reverse for the Boat Race, a race which the CCBC squad could watch with interest, and see again all those landmarks they had spotted on their sightseeing trip down the Thames!

Rob Wilson

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