This year saw the debut of Hughes Hall Women’s Team in the first novice race of the Michaelmas term. The team worked tremendously hard over the past month to get to where they were, with a dramatic improvement in both form and timing. On the night of the 11th of November, the team came together and finished 8th out of 10 crews in their W1 division and 21st in the overall W1 division! To put this into context, 44 women’s college teams competed in Queens’ Ergs this year. This is a huge achievement as a debut team!
The Hughes Hall novice men did an amazing performance to show a lot of willpower and grit. Being referred as the loosing team by the officials after just a couple of minutes into the first race, we bounced back with a glorious comeback. Hughes Hall men came 7th out of 14 crews in our M1 division and 9th in the overall rank from the initial heats, which earned ourselves a place in the M1 finals! The harder they hit us, the stronger we become.
Unfortunately one of the novice men sprinted too hard in the initial heat that led to him not feeling well and was advised not to race further. With one man down, Diana Robinson, our fastest novice woman, stepped up and became the sub for the novice men finals and achieved a personal best split of 1:46.7s! Finishing 12th overall in the finals, the crew had no regret but enjoyment. It is also worth mentioning that one of our rowers Philipp Sterzinger finished the 500m with a split of 1:23.9, just 0.2s away from the fastest novice man of the night. Good job Philipp! We would like to express our deepest gratitude to Diana Robinson, our W1 crew, coxes and everyone who supported the crew throughout the event. Every cheer you made had driven us stronger and faster. Let’s go Hughes!
Hughes Hall Boat Club 