With more than 350 crews having faced the Tyne this weekend, we gained our first insight into how university crews are shaping up in 2024. Here we look at the men’s performances; you can find the run-down of the women’s events here.
For host Newcastle it was a great weekend, winning five of the six men’s sweep events on Saturday; notably, their intermediate eight set the third fastest time of the day, ahead of the championship eight offerings from Edinburgh and Imperial.
However, in the blue ribband event they came up short, as local rivals Durham reigned supreme. Caspar Gray’s aggressive line combined with the crew’s aggressive catches powered them to a 5.6 second win over the blue star in the championship eights
In the men’s sculling ranks, it was another tale of dominance, this time for Reading who went three for three in the championship, intermediate and lightweight quads, setting three of the four fastest times in the first division as their third quad was just 1.2 seconds behind the best of the rest.
In Sunday’s beginner racing, Exeter and Surrey reignited their rivalry as the Devon program’s eight put five seconds into Surrey, whilst in the second division, they split honours as Surrey took the coxed four while Exeter won the quad.
Serious strength from Newcastle and Reading in the sweep and sculling events respectively sets down a daunting gauntlet for their southern rivals ahead of HoRR and BUCS Regatta. Fierce racing in the beginner events sets the stage for a thrilling season of competition from a collection of universities less accustomed to topping the timing sheets. In short, 2024 is shaping up to be a fantastic year for student racing.
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