IC Rowers triumph

The Scullers Head of the River is traditionally an Imperial College dominated event, with multiple pennant and overall winners dotted around current and past IC members. Unfortunately our most recent winner Jamie Kirkwood was released in the summer transfer window on a Bosman free, therefore hopes had turned to the latest crop of IC athletes to step up to the plate. And did they step up! ICBC had the quickest female sculler of the day as well as overall 3rd place, 5th place and 8 pennants, unbelievable!

It was an absolutely freezing December day on the Tideway, however the wind had been kind to the rowers and it was very still. One of the very last scullers to race was Georgie Phillips; she had waited for over 500 other scullers to come past her before she could start. In her shiny new Fillipi she tanked it down the course in stylish fashion, overtaking multiple scullers on her way. However despite the excellent row, even Georgie wasn’t expecting to finish 105th, be the quickest lady of the day and win an IM3 Lightweight pennant to go with it! Even head Coach Don McLachlan was left speechless during his speech at the annual dinner later on that evening (more on this later). Well done Georgie!

Close behind Georgie in the overall rankings was Helen Wood, who picked up the IM2 pennant and was the second fastest woman of the day. Yet another pennant came in the form of Myriam Goudet, ICBC’s latest big deal from across the channel. Myriam has been impressing everyone in the past few months, both with her rowing ability and the fact that she understands what the hell Paul Jones is talking about. Myriam picked up the Elite pennant after an excellent morning’s work.

On the Men’s side, the IC-lightweight boys have been at it again. Myles Holbrough romped his way to an 11th position overall and picked up the Lightweight IM2 pennant in the process. He was closely followed by Paul Jones, who won the Lightweight IM1 pennant and finished an excellent 16th overall. Myles said he was ‘over the moon’ to beat love rival Tom ‘grim’ Hope, new boy on the block at IC. Despite struggling with illness and the distractions of an undergraduate degree at Roehampton (SO MANY PARTIES), Tom still won the Lightweight Elite Pennant, pipping Bad-Man Wilf Kimberley by just 1 place overall.

Another girl strutting her stuff in a new Fillipi was Cat Buizza. Despite racing with the weight of a hot water bottle (to keep warm at the start) Cat managed to win the Women’s Novice pennant in style. The final pennant winner of the day was Hal Bradbury, who was the quickest Senior Man.

Although not pennant winners, Henry Goodier and Ben Spencer-Jones ensured IC again dominated the top-5, coming 3rd and 5th respectively. They were racing in the extremely tough Novice category (in which they finished 2nd and 3rd) despite Ben burying himself in a helpless fellow novice somewhere around the Island. These results are all the more impressive considering both of these chaps are sweepers at heart (and Ben not even that!). Ben’s 5th place puts him in a list of undisputed IC legends who have also finished in the most prestigious position at this wonderful head, including international Boat-Man superstar Sam Scimgeour, Desert Running nutter JPD and of course (otherwise why would I big it up) Yours truly.

IC had so many excellent performances that I haven’t been able to fit them all in so sorry if you haven’t had a shout out, next time win a pennant! Anyway, almost as soon as the last IC sculler had crossed the line, attention turned to the evenings frivolities. The ICBC Annual Dinner was held at the Rembrandt Hotel in Knightsbridge, and it was brilliant. Big shout out and well done to Ben, Lily, Sammy C and the rest of the committee (apart from me) who did a fantastic job organising it. It was great to see the class of ‘92 at the dinner this year, and everyone is looking forward to getting out our shiny new eight named in their honour. There were some beautiful moments at the dinner, my two personal favourites were Harriet sweeping Myles off his feet and IC legends Andy G and Winnie showing off their shaven legs in Pacha (they are now cyclists!).

ICBC are looking forward to 2013 and have already been back training hard. Next event is BUCS head in February and it is all guns blazing from now until then so we can bring home the bacon.