Sidney entered six novice crews into Queens’ Ergs this Tuesday 11th November, and rowers, coxes and coaches alike were bursting with excitement – and not a little trepidation – as each group made its way to Queens’. We whiled away the compulsory 45+ minutes between registration and racing by admiring this year’s particularly artsy t-shirt and applying liberal amounts of face paint*.
Each crew’s weeks of training and huge motivation payed off! On the men’s side, Marsh pulled an awesome 1:35.3 average, Casey nailed a sharp 1:39.0, and Homer powered out a solid 1:47.9. On the women’s side, Meegan and Harrison both improved on their crew PB with a beautiful 2:04.7 and 2:12.9 respectively – incidentally, it is the first year that all of Sidney’s women’s novice crews have sub-2minutes rowers, you’re setting a strong precedent!
As for Snow… well, the ladies of Snow were in their usual high spirits when they strode into Queens’ sports hall for the 7pm W1 heat, and had resolved to give it everything. Spurred on by their cox Jeff, their coaches Nathan and myself, and their crewmates’ cheering, each girl showed us what they were made of! Starting with Gillian’s absolutely focused strength and Eleanor’s ruthlessly steady row, followed by Aleksandra’s headlong power and Graziella’s implacable technique, the girls finally went wild when Martina methodically demonstrated exactly what “empty out” means. In the whirlwind of adrenaline, Claire, whose back had healed since the weekend, picked up the power to new levels, and Snow’s boat on the blue screen inched its way up from the middle of the division. Phoebe’s split never once went above 1:50 as she built on the crew’s efforts and drew ever closer to the lead boats amidst the other girls’ delirious cheers. Finally, Evie sat down and, in a bubble of utter lucidity, proceeded to pull neck-to-neck with first Murray Edwards and then Churchill. In a three-boat race to the finish, she smashed down a sub-1:45 power 10 and hurtled through the last 100 meters in a series of huge drawn-out strokes, hitting the end line first. With an unbelievable average of 1:55.3, Snow had won their heat and exploded into raw celebration, prompting the Queens’ commentator to call out “Brace yourselves, Snow is coming!”
With the fourth best time in the W1 heats, Snow got into the finals, which were scheduled to start a couple hours later. Settling into a quiet corner of Queens’ Bar, we stretched, ate, relaxed, and dutifully did 10 squats every 5 minutes to keep the muscles loose. The other novice crews joined us for some banter, as did several seniors, coaches and friends from college – thank you all for your support! The race plan for the finals was “do the same again”, and indeed the girls pulled an average of 1:55.9, emptying out for the second time in the evening (in fact, Eleanor and Claire managed to do even better than in the heat, which had already seen each girl pull off a PB). Finishing twelfth in the toughest finals in recent years, Snow were incredibly pleased with their QuErgs campaign, and I was the proudest coach in town.
So again: massive well done to all of the Sidney men and women, by far the greatest novices the world has ever seen!
* It has been noticed that while the women made an effort with their war paint, the men’s crews chose to abstain – assuredly a ploy to whip up our expectations for their Emma Sprints costumes? Bring it on, then!
