It doesn’t snow that frequently in these parts, but it just so happened that at 6am (or 6.10 to be precise) it was doing just that. Luckily by the time of the first division at out Eton’s Dorney Lake the snow had given way to merely light rain and temperatures in the low single digits. Balliol had a coxed four (Christopher Wright, Tobias Witting, Hunter Harris, Oscar Schonfeld, Alice Lighton) and a single sculler (Tobias Witting) entered in the days three divisions.

The first race was in the four and saw perhaps the best rowing that this crew has done. Carrying out a detailed race plan, the four won the Senior 2 category reasonably convincingly from Imperial College by two seconds. Balliol ended up the third fastest crew in the division losing only to a quad and a very talented single sculler. Along the way, the crew beat the four Oxford Lightweight fours entered by five, fifteen, twenty, and thirty-five seconds respectively – particularly satisfying since the fastest of the lightweight bunch contained our very own Jack Devlin.

In the second division, Tobi raced in his single in the Senior 4 category while the rest of us put our feet up and munched on Soreen. In only his second race, Tobi tore the field to shreds, beating his closest rival by ten seconds to claim the win. It is now two wins out of two in Tobi’s burgeoning sculling career.

Reconvening for the third and final division, the four was entered into Senior 1. Conditions had changed somewhat with a decent tailwind providing solace for lighter crews but also some pretty choppy water particularly in the second half of the course. In all honestly, the crew didn’t cope with the conditions terribly well, showing some inexperience or perhaps rustiness in choppy water
and also suffering from the earlier racing. Still we posted a decent time beating three of the four Lightweight crews but allowing Jack’s four to recapture some pride posting a time nine seconds faster than our own effort.

It was a pretty shattering day’s racing but useful in terms of race practice and balls-to-the-wall training as well as providing invaluable experience for Alice who performed admirably in the cox’s seat all day.

Cox To Stroke: Alice Lighton, Oscar Schonfeld, Hunter Harris, Tobias Witting, Chris Wright