The Intermediate Coxed Four category at BUCS Head is a big one, with a large number of universities competing for the coveted top spot. It’s also a difficult one to preview. Barely any of these crews have any real indication of current form relative to each other, or at all, and due to the nature of the category, a lot of these guys are younger and less experienced compared to their championship counterparts, so knowing who’s likely to have the speed here is tricky. One can, however, make some decent predictions based on the strengths of the programs themselves.
As there are so many entries, I’ll focus on the top few crews for the preview, and make a prediction for placements at the end.
Imperial College BC
The London-based university always produces some great units, and won this event last year. Their coxed four is entered under Josh Bateman, who raced with the IC first eight at Quintin Head recently – though IC have both a Championship Coxless Four and Coxed Four racing at BUCS, so this looks to be an entry made up of second eight athletes. That being said, the Imperial squad looks to have great depth at the moment; at Fours Head, Imperial took second and fourth place in the hotly-contested Academic Coxed Four category. I think Imperial will certainly be looking for a win here, though the depth of other squads like Durham and Edinburgh might make that difficult.
Durham University BC
Durham have found a load of speed over the past couple of years at the top end, with an impressive eight last season that made the Temple semi-finals. Their squad is continuing to grow in talent and depth. This is a crew made up likely of second eight athletes, and this group has already shown some really great speed.
In the Northern Rowing Series invitational fixtures against Newcastle, Tyne and Edinburgh, the Durham second eight had a stormer of a time trial to handily beat Edinburgh and Newcastle’s second eights, finishing only two seconds behind Newcastle’s top eight. While the Durham boys were beaten in the 1km sprint that followed, they’ll take great confidence from the result over the longer distance, particularly heading into BUCS. More recently, these boys were a little off the pace at Rutherford Head relative to other second eights, so they’ll be looking to re-establish their momentum here.
Newcastle University BC
Newcastle have lost speed at the top end recently, but their depth remains solid – a testament to the unparalleled hard work put in by all the Blue Star athletes in Angelo Savarino’s notoriously difficult programme. Rutherford Head proved successful for the Newcastle second eight, beating all other second eight pretty handily – including UL’s.
Newcastle will be determined this year to prove naysayers wrong and get back to the heights of prior Blue Star squads. BUCS Head will be an important test of how realistic that goal is for this season.
Edinburgh University BC
The final part of the Durham/Newcastle/Edinburgh rivalry, these boys will no doubt race ferociously. Edinburgh are having a good season so far, and their second eight was ahead of Durham’s at Rutherford Head. In the second division, Edinburgh actually won Band 2 Coxless Fours against Durham, Newcastle and UL, suggesting great speed and potential from the Edinburgh boys. They may well be the dark horses here.
University of Surrey BC
Surrey have their top guys entered in this four, which makes them a potentially really dangerous unit. They were second in this category last year, and will be looking to see if they can win the event outright this year. A good result early in the season in the coxed four at Teddington Head was followed by a strong performance at Fours Head, where the four switched to sculling and placed seventh in Academic Quads in an impressive display of versatility.
As these guys will generally be focusing on the four for the whole season, they’ll be an experienced unit, particularly relative to many other boats in this category. I think they’ll certainly make an impression here, even if they’re not quick enough for the overall win.
Prediction
There are a ton of other crews entered here, including ones that performed pretty well in this event last year, like Lancaster University, University of Nottingham, University of Bath and University of Strathclyde.
That being said, I think that the top spots will be taken by the crews that I’ve previewed in more detail above. In terms of a finish order among them, I’m going to go with an Imperial College win, followed by Newcastle University, with the University of Edinburgh in third, beating out Durham University. I think the University of Surrey will round it out in fifth.
Good luck to all crews.
Five Man
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