Roughing it at GB’s biggest university regatta

To avoid cancelling races due to high winds, organisers chose to shorten the course to 1000m for most of Saturday’s racing and all of Monday’s finals. This meant that nearly all of the 46 classes of races were able to take place. Classes ranged from the lightweight women’s eight through to the men’s single scull and the women’s quadruple sculls. 

 Reading University finished at the top of the medals table with a huge 16 medal haul, nine of them gold. Charlotte Burgess helped win four of the golds. Burgess, 20, made the British under-23 team in 2010 racing at the World Rowing Under 23 Championships in the lightweight women’s double. She also took silver at the World University Rowing Championships in the same year. 

But Reading’s medal haul was not enough for them to secure the top trophy, the Victor Ludorum Trophy. This went to Durham University who finished with the most points for the eighth year in a row. Reading took second while last year’s second place getter, Imperial College finishing one down in third. 

The men’s eight was raced in rough tail wind conditions over 1000m, which organisers said led to a much more competitive environment. Newcastle University got to the line just a fraction ahead of Oxford Brookes University.

The results from this regatta will help select the British crew that will compete at the European University Rowing Championships to be held in Moscow, 31 August – 2 September 2011. 

BUCS – British Universities & Colleges Sport – is the national organisation for higher sport in Great Britain. It manages the development and competition programme for 50 sports. BUCS introduced the rowing regatta in the mid 1990s. Rowing has been part of the university sport programme since the 1930s.