Winds of change at Europe's largest university regatta

The British Universities & Colleges Sports (BUCS) Rowing Championships once again exceeded its largest number of participating crews with a record 1,071 from 71 universities taking part.

The event ran from 3 May to 5 May at its regular location of Nottingham, Great Britain and rowers faced fierce competition thanks to a system of morning time trials that seeded afternoon finals.

Taking away the trophy for the overall top university was the University of London (ULBC). This is the first time that ULBC has won the top trophy, the Victor Ludorum Trophy. Regular winners, Durham University BC found themselves pushed into third place overall behind Imperial University.

For the first time separate Victor Ludroum trophies were awarded to women, men and overall. Coming out on top for the men was Imperial College who dominated in the men’s lightweight category and had wins both in sweep and sculling events. Oxford Brookes University stood out in the men’s sweep boat classes winning both the championship and intermediate eight and also the coxed four and the championship four.

On the women’s side it was Durham University who had success in a full range of events including sculling, sweep and lightweight. Newcastle University won in the women’s eight, retaining their 2013 title in this event.
But it was the overall trophy winners, ULBC, who completed the best effort overall helped by the lightweight men’s eight – winning for the third straight year. The lightweight men’s eight, along with the women’s eight raced in ULBC’s newly awarded Parmigiani Spirit 2013 boat, which was awarded to the club on behalf of James Cook, 2013 Award winner.

“The event as a whole was incredible,” said ULBC women’s captain Freya Hoyle. “Knowing that the coaches plan was to win the Victor Ludorum team event gave the squad a united goal and brought us together, supporting each other through every round of every event to the best outcome at the regatta.”

“The spirit of the event continues to grow and develop. We had more crews than ever, over 70 universities and some huge lines of fours and eights boating for the time trials in the mornings,” said Fiona Rennie, chair of the BUCS Rowing Sport Advisory Group. “It was a great weekend with top quality racing in all of the categories.”

For full results.