On A Roll

All 3 of IC's all-conquering badminton teams are now clearly at the top of their respective BUSA leagues. The Ladies team and Mens 2nds are unbeaten, with only the firsts letting us down with a draw last week.

The Ladies team were at home against LSE this week. LSE were top of the league coming into this match since they had played one more match than IC. The captain (Emma) was worried it might be a tight match and kept trying to get the Mens 2nds to finish more quickly as we played first, even though we only started late due to a couple of people not turning up to take the club session, Emma, Vicky. The ladies however should not have worried as they easily bowled over the LSE ladies 8-1. Even this one game they got (the only one IC has lost), was not due to them out playing us, rather due to an unfortunate injury to one of our players.

The Mens 2nds had the first of 2 crunch matches in the league this year. We came up against UCL. The match was very close and UCL proved to be the second best team in the league by some way. UCL's captain who we all took an instant disliking too due to his court manner and sportsmanship (lack of), put himself and his partner in as third pair when they were clearly the top pair.

Due to an injury to Eric, I (Gavin) partnered Chan, with Spencer coming in to partner Ben. We played as the third pair and were beating the UCL captain 14-9, when our lack of practice together, shown by us being unable to close the set out, led us to losing 14-17. The second game we were rolled over 15-6. However our top 2 pairs won both there matches, and the UCL captain looked worried, especially when he was told this was not our strongest team. All 3 pairs went on to beat their top 2 pairs, but unfortunately none of us were able to beat their captain even though Nathan and Kevin took them to 3 sets.

Last week saw a slight blip in IC's quest for all out dominance. The Mens 1st's could only draw against Reading. Due to this new BUSA format, a team only needs two good players to draw every match, thanks to the 4 singles games they play, and Reading had a couple of good players: one of them being a Gibraltar national player who is going to the Senior World Championships in June. Neither Mark nor Dave had much chance in that one, only getting 4 and 6 points respectively out of 30 (Best of 3 games to 15).

The 2 doubles pairs had no trouble what so ever in dispatching Reading, so the team ended up with a respectable 4-4 draw. This still leaves them top of the league since their main rivals (Hertfordshire) slipped up against QMW.

So even with a slight slip for the 1sts, IC are still dominant in London, played 13, won 12 drawn 1. On rolls the IC band wagon.

Four Heads Of The River

Despite multiple last minute crew changes due to illness the crews of Imperial College and Queens Tower (often combined for this event) had a very successful day on the Tideway.

Unfortunately our top boat - a quad scull containing Steve Trapmore, Kieran West Luka Grubor (all Olympic Gold Medallists) and Ed Coode (World Champion) had to scratch their entry due to illness. However our second quad with Dan Marrett, Derek Holland, Dan Ouseley and Raphael were able to race, and did extremely well, finishing fifth overall (out of 517 crews). Every cloud has a silver lining, and Steve Trapmore was able to sub into the first IC/QT composite boat (a coxless four) to replace club captain Rick Fulton (who had also succumbed to illness). There are not many clubs where you can get stand-ins of his calibre! This crew (with Jason Keyes, Pete Holt and Angus Rivers) also did very well, finishing 25th overall and the third fastest four in the whole event.

The next highest placing was earned by our all IC quad of Franco, Stoo Larner, Hugh Mackenzie and Alex "male model" Hussey, who finished 36th, another impressive performance. Extremely close behind them was our second coxless four of George Whittaker, Jon Weale, Nick Ablitt and Paul Anderson who came from the back of the field to take 38th place overall (and were the 5th fastest four), in a time which would have won the Senior 1 or 2 pennant. They were eligible for senior 1 but unfortunately had to race elite due to a crew change. The next crew in, our only coxed four, finished 80th overall (and 5th in their category). This consisted of cox Seb Pearce, Graeme Harrington, Lex Brun, Ed Johnson and Andy Wilkinson. Extremely close behind them was an IC/QT quad of Jimmy Wells, Alex, Andy Hodgson and Mark Hall, who finished 82nd overall.

We then come to our only pennant win, with the IC/QT Women's quad of Bev Gough, Ali Barnes, Antonia Schmeiglow (Bumble) and Emma Williams who claimed the Senior 2 Quad Sculls category, finishing 136th overall. 40 seconds behind them was our second women's quad, an all IC combination of Helen Ellison, Tessa King, Kelly Cummins (fresh from doing the New York Marathon the week before) and Kathy Burgoine who finished 8th in their category and 213th overall.

The final IC crew was a Women's Senior 3 coxed four with cox Ben Lau, Ali Elsey, Claire Pettitt, Jennie Lambert and Josie Bowen who finished 451st overall but 8th in their category.

Overall there were a whole host of satisfying results, especially as we beat Oxford Brookes, our archrivals, in almost every category.

Yacht Club

Last Friday eight intrepid yacht club members gathered outside Southside in freezing conditions for the first racing weekend of the year. The next two days were spent racing against twenty-seven identical yachts in the Solent.

Sadly, what little wind there was on Saturday soon died entirely. As such only eight boats finished the race before the time limit, leaving us with a "did not finish" for the first race. As the wind then died entirely the organisers abandoned racing for the day.

Sunday morning brought with it better racing conditions with more wind and less Baltic conditions. As only one race had been completed the previous day the organisers were intent on having three races and so shorter courses were set. We started the first race well, gaining a strong position. There we stayed for the duration of the race, and finished in a very respectable 7th place. Despite a slow start to the second race some good sailing and excellent tactical decisions rapidly pushed us up through the fleet allowing us to finish in 12th place.

With the wind strengthening, our hopes were high for a good performance in the final race of the day. Despite a good start we found ourselves third from last before we had rounded the first mark. Undeterred, we pushed on and some superb tactical decisions had us cutting through the fleet with leaps and bounds. At one mark excellent teamwork and boat positing took us past six other boats in one fell swoop. Keeping up the performance, we finished in 11th place, a satisfying end to a very exciting weekend's racing.

Yacht Club meet in Southside at 6pm on Mondays.