At the end of an exhausting and exhilarating week, Balliol Women remain Head of the River. As W1 arrived at the boathouse on a sunny Saturday afternoon there was an overwhelming sense of camaraderie in the air.  Leading up to this hour motivational ‘we CAN do this’ emails had been flying around left, right, and centre, and the entire [...]

Wow W1 – you now have a task on your hands! Today our first women’s eight had a much easier time of it – keeping their distance well-ahead of Wadham until Pembroke stormed upon Wadham in the gut. This, much like Wednesday, allowed our girls to drop the rate and have a relaxed paddle home. [...]

And what a tense day it was! W1 had Wadham chasing them, a crew who caught Hall yesterday and who over-rated Balliol for the most part of the race today. Our girls managed to keep their cool and with some classy coxing (S Wan), evaded being caught to defend Headship for one more day! High [...]

An equally infuriating and pleasing day for the girls! W2 were chasing LMH and had overlap in the gut but then unfortunately came a crab, to detrimental effect. 5 more strokes and they would have had it! But they recovered well and gained on them for the rest of the race, – day two should [...]

  Balliol’s first women’s eight competed in Bedford Regatta on the 14 May – a show known to give us many a trophy over the years. Unfortunately this year saw two injured crew members – one of whom had to be replaced from the start by one of last year’s Headship crew, and the other [...]

Day 3 of Torpids saw W1 receive their first bump. Annoyingly, we were gaining on Christchurch as Pembroke, who have been shooting up the rankings all week, crept up on us.  Pembroke got us as we held onto Christchurch for some considerable time and even had overlap at one point, but no concession came and [...]

Day 2 of Torpids saw more drama for the girls! W1, being chased by Queen’s (who we bumped yesterday) had to row over after the three crews ahead each bumped out. I think most would agree that going for the quadruple bump over such a short course is somewhat ambitious! Nevertheless it was a strong, hard [...]

One down, three to go… The first day of Torpids 2011 saw W1 achieve a rather too literal over-bump on Queen’s, who also succumbed to Wadham. After a solid start, we settled into a good rhythm going into the gut and came out the other side to catch Queen’s, who waited for us to get [...]

In addition to my previous post… A huge thank you is due to Simon Wan and Clarissa Belloni, cox and stroke of W1, who have been acting co-captains this term due to my failing health. They have done a brilliant job. Further, Nick Bevan, our star coach of the past five years fled to Australia [...]

Just over one week until Torpids and don’t we know it! Following a run of illnesses W1 has finally been set and is looking strong. The boat this year sees three novice additions and a returning ex-blue, whom we are all very grateful for. Last weekend we braved an early Sunday morning to compete in [...]

‘Particular congratulations to Balliol W1 for successfully holding into the Women’s 8s title for the second year’ – a very pleasing way to be able to begin my first captain’s blog! Even if there were disappointingly few senior women’s crews entered for Nephthys Regatta, Balliol W1 still stormed to victory with a 5-length lead over [...]