Day 1

Both our WA and our MA managed to pull off wins against St. Antz in their first rounds, leaving the women to face St. Anne’s WA in their second round tomorrow, and the men either Wadham MC or Hertford MA. Our MB and WA may have taken losses, but rowed hard and clean, and are looking strong for their races tomorrow. WB were gaining steadily on Trinity A (the second place winners of Nephthys Regatta) in the last 100m of the race, and in the end lost by under a length; they are looking forward to showing Teddy Hall WA that they mean business.

Day 2

On the men’s side, the day was started off with Wolfson MB taking on Magdalen MA. As a friendly boat, this was the last race for these men. They started the race strong, pulling away off the start, though a crab soon removed that advantage. Through the middle of the race it was very close until a severe crab caused one’s feet to come out. By the time he got his feet back in, Magdalen had a 4 seat lead but Wolfson fought back strongly to bring it back to 2 seats but it was too late as the line beat them to it. It was a strong show by MB and they should hold their heads high.

Wolfson MA had their strongest start against Hertford MA and they took an early lead. They were never troubled from that point onwards, striding out well and did a solid rate 32 row for the entire length of the race to cross the line comfortable winners. It was a strong win by MA who will take on Mansfield MB tomorrow afternoon.

Wolfson WB started off the the day with a strong show against Teddy Hall WA. Our line was perfect and the girls quickly pulled ahead, but an unfortunate gate mishap left a rower temporarily out of action, allowing a struggling Teddy to gain back ground. Even with only 7 rowers for the majority of the race, WB only came in two feet short of a victory. Heartbroken as we are, the B crew wolf pups did an AMAZING job this week and deserve HIGH praise from the pack.

Wolfson WA pulled off a much more favourable result. It was a hard fight against St. Anne’s WA, with them keeping neck and neck with us through the green bank, but our superior strength and technique paid off in full as we rounded the last bend past the Univ raft. Our wolves not only pull away, but won by an entire length!

Day 3

The ladies of Wolfson (WA) crushed the competition at their third day of Christ Church Regatta, pulling ahead in both races (Brasenose WB and Corpus Christi WA) right off from the very beginning, and winning each by multiple lengths. They rowed at a hard rate 28 to 30 and pulled off each crew from the very start, never looking back nor showing mercy. The girls were calm and collected, rowing in long composed strokes and catching the eye of every spectator on the river. One bank-rider even proclaimed “how are they so good??” amidst nervous laughter, as we made our way down the green bank. They are looking forward to another three potential back-to-back races tomorrow, starting with Keble WA in the quarter final round.

Wolfson MA had a relatively easy today taking on Mansfield MB who had lost their first race and got through to round 3 on a bye. After intimidating Mansfield in the marshalling area by executing some solid roll ups, the men had a good start and pulled away as they strode out. Once they had clear water they took the rate down (in order to conserve energy for a potential of 4 races tomorrow) but were still pulling away and had a 3 length lead coming past our boathouse. As practice for tomorrow they executed a wind for the finish taking the rate up to 36/38 whilst maintaining their technique putting some serious speed on the boat. They are going to be a serious threat tomorrow.

Day 4 – Finale

Fantastic news from today’s final day of Christ Church Regatta. Women WA have won the Christ Church Regatta! It was an phenomenal final between Wolfson and Wadham. The Men’s MA have won second place! It was an absolutely amazing race against Balliol. Congrats to all of Wolfson novice crews: WA, WB, MA and MB. This is Wolfson
‘s most successful year at Christ Church regatta.

The women’s boat, coached by Sabine Parrish, Stephanie Solywoda, and Iana Alexeeva and coxed by John McManigle, was powered by Anne Coventry (bow), Mariana Cruz, Prachi Naik, Anna Khanina, Annie Bochu, Nichola Kitson, Jessica Dunham, and Lea Sefer (str). The women had a fantastic set of races. On Wednesday, they secured their place in the main draw with a crushing defeat of Hertford by three lengths. This gave them Thursday to rest. On Friday, they quickly dispatched Jesus B by 2.5 lengths before getting revenge on New College in a well-contested race (3/4 length).

Saturday, the women arrived ready to take charge in the final divisions. Their first race — the quarter-finals — was against a strong Green Templeton crew, which the Wolves defeated by 2 lengths. Unfortunately, in the semi-finals, the ladies fell to Regent’s Park in a hotly fought race (1 length). In the 3rd place race, Wolfson rose to defeat Jesus by a verdict of “easily”. This performance was Wolfson’s best in living memory, and likely the best in the history of the Wolfson women. The ladies emerged with victory in their bellies, ready to enjoy a well-earned dinner and go on to train for bumps.

The men’s first boat, coached by Shelley Pearson and Matteo Ginelli and coxed by Sofia Hauck, was powered by Keven Schlegel (bow), Hao Chin, Ward Nusselder, Christian Vaas, Jamie Collier, Alexander Edwards, Philipp Schafer, and David Asker (str). The men also had a successful campaign, beginning with their defeat of Magdalen on Wednesday (1 length). Thursday, they vanquished Exeter B by three lengths, and Friday the men trounced the St. Catherine’s C boat easily before fighting off St. Benet’s by two lengths. Unfortunately, the men of Brasenose managed to score a victory off of the Wolves in the quarter-finals on Saturday, edging them out by 3/4 length. The men held their heads high (and, at the dinner, their wine higher) and vowed to translate their speed into bumps come Torpids.

The men’s second boat, also coached by Shelley Pearson and Matteo Ginelli and coxed by Stefany Wragg and John McManigle, was powered by Brian Chu, Erkin Erdal, Niraj Welikala, Josh Combs, Peter Treherne, Isaac Turner, Zach Alfred, and Ken Ishikawa. On Wednesday, their race was aborted when a Balliol crew was having a difficult time landing and obstructed the racing line. On the Thursday re-row, the men defeated a strong Lincoln B crew by 1/2 length. Unfortunately, the men fell to a powerful Trinity opponent on Friday.

The Christ Church Regatta Dinner, held at the Wig and Pen and organised by social secretary Sofia Hauck, was a huge success. Toasts and speeches were made and limericks were recited:

Those strong novice women from Wolfson
Who were quick at the catch and then pulled some
From their start with a growl
To their victory howl
We applaud our new seniors of Wolfson!
— Sabine Parrish

Gallery

Our men’s boat (from bow, Giovanni Mezzano, Justin McKee, Wybo Wiersma, Nan Liu, Maxim Osipov, Eric Sor, Joao de Sousa Pinto, and Maurits Kroese, coxed by Nicholas Hartley and coached by Gregers Bangert) made Wolfson proud. On Wednesday, they won by a canvas against a strong Merton crew. Unfortunately, Thursday would bring the end of their campaign with a 2-length defeat at the hands of Lincoln. The men held their heads high, and we look forward to seeing what they can do as seniors!

The Wolfson women (from bow, Claudia Vadeboncoeur, Katie Rickard, Amelie Hartmann, Kelsey Murrell, Irene Milana, Kim Wilkinson, Anny Li, and Mickaela Nixon, coxed by Laura Hawkins and coached by Geordie MacLeod) had an epic campaign. On Wednesday, they bested Worcester’s second boat with a verdict of “easily”. Thursday they did the same against Corpus Christi’s best. On Friday, the ladies came out strong, but a powerful St. Anne’s crew was able to edge them out by a nose. The women showed grit and determination, and we can only guess what victories they’ll claim as battle-hardened senior rowers.

Gallery

However, University College Boat Club decided to sponsor an indoor “erg regatta” for the crews stationed at the Univ boathouse — Wolfson, St. Peters, Somerville, and Univ. Wolfson performed admirably at the regatta. The women’s crew, after epic training throughout Michaelmas term, emerged victorious. The men also put in a strong performance. There’s no doubt these new rowers will make us proud in Torpids!

Both men’s crews raced (and lost) in the first round and the repêchage. The women lost their first race then won their repêchage race and moved on to the second round which they lost.

Unfortunately, the adventure stopped there for our crews, but all showed some awesome determination and some good racing. The men’s A crew lost both their races by only a few meters against very strong colleges, and the women convincingly won their first repêchage race.

The Mens A crew — Jon Woolf (cox), Malcolm Finn (str), Andy Briggs (7), Jamie Harle (6), Nils Pedersen (5), David Thorpe (4), Franco Dinelli (3), Paul Thirtle (2), Matt Roberts (bow), Zoe Smith (coach) — entered the competition on the Friday into the second round, where they promptly disposed of Magdalen C by about 3 lengths. In the third round, a similar margin was enough to eradicate Lincoln C. Then it all came to an abrupt halt with a very close race with New A, who apparently managed to head Wolfson off into the transit lane (Steady! Ed), and then went on to win by half a length.

The Womens A Crew — John Pinot de Moira (cox), Polly Field (str), Sabine Heinz (7), Natasha Hill (6), Patricia Manzano (5), Susanne Bangert (4), Lydia Jackson (3), Emma Jaikaran (2), Jacky Woodman (bow), James Hopkins (coach) — got as far as the men’s crew. In the first round, they beat Queens by ~20 lengths (and looked very good). In second round, Trinity A had the bad luck of the draw and were beaten by 15 lengths. The third round saw a verdict of easily over St Anthony’s. But in the fourth round, the ladies came up against Keble A, who went on to win the whole thing, and were beaten out of the competition.

The Womens B Crew — James Rubinstein (cox), Christina Buesching (str), Eva Cyhlarova (7), Kerstin Persson (6), Marilyn Mielke (5), Pauline von Hellermann (4), Sarah Beynon (3), Jessica Sack (2), Jacqueline Berlin (bow), Axel Wabenhorst (coach) — had a tough draw and in the first round were beaten by St Hilda’s A by 5-6 lengths. In the repechage, they were beaten by Corpus Christi A by 2 lengths, but rowed a much better race with more control.

The Mens B Crew — James Rubenstein (cox), Paul Metzgen (str), Tilman Bauer (7), Olaf Ruske (6), Francesco Pezzo (5), Paolo La Rocca (4), Max Lorenzetti (3), Luca Nunziata (2), Andrew Renault (bow), Argyris Stassinakis (coach) — beat St Annes C in the first round by a comfortable margin, and then went on to beat LMH B in the second round. Sadly, Merton A presented too tough a task and the boys went out in the 3rd round.

Wolfson Novice ‘A’, Christ Church Regatta 1995 winners.

Waiting for Jesus: the story of the 1995 Christ Church Novice Regatta winning crew

It’s hard to imagine given where they stand now, but in the 1990’s Wolfson men’s boat club struggled. Strangely, during this period the college was always full of experienced, tall rowers, but they all seemed to find excuses why the crew was not good enough for them, or why their honour had been slighted, or that they had a funny feeling in their toe, or that they needed to write their thesis (the least acceptable excuse). This generally left the Torpids 1st eight full of novices, and only short guys remained to fill up the Summer Eights crew, leaving us generally running as fast as we could just to tread water. However, there were some bright spots, and one of them actually came about as a consequence of such a mass desertion.

1995 had been a particularly bad year, with the men’s captain allegedly alienating just about everybody and the 2nd eight being THE comedy moment of summer eights (they never made it to Donny Bridge). This left incoming captain Lars “jumping higher” Wulf with an empty locker. However, he decided rather sensibly to get cracking on novices as soon as possible, and take advantage of Wolfson’s graduate status to utilise the quiet conditions on the Isis during summer to persuade new talent into the club. I was one such sucker. I had arrived at Wolfson to do my DPhil the year before, armed with the knowledge that rowing was far too hard work and involved early mornings which I was averse to. I was therefore not taken in by the hard sell at fresher’s week. I was also captain of the squash team who had done the triple (both term’s leagues and cuppers) and was a crucial linchpin in the cricket team, so did not see how I could abandon these for the absolute dedication that rowing appeared to require. I had not, however, bargained on the fact that my office mate (and later co-boat club captain) Theresa Burt, would take up rowing and spend every minute I was in her presence telling my how great It was. Thus, as a scientist, I felt I had no option but to collect the evidence myself to demonstrate that this was clearly not the case.

So it was that I signed up for Lars’s summer novice training. Evening outings and warm summer evenings (the last of the 1990’s) eased us in gently, and by the time the term started and the rest of the novices arrived, we had a core of 4 rowers (Phill Biggin, myself, Carsten Heide and Derek Kennett) who were rowing full slide and firm pressure and would go on to make up the stern 4. After fresher’s week and some initial selection, to this was added Rob Wills, Bill Steel, Francesco Gonzalez and Chris Russell. Jo Perkins, our cox, had the kind of accent that made the Queen sound common, but its authority had us at her beck and call. Lars’s magic touch was to instill one of the toughest land training programs that Wolfson had seen for a while, and he managed to get all the novices coming along. The circuits became legendary for his cries of “jumping higher” and “jumping even higher than before” at the burpees. He also took no prisoners on the river, and I still remember his cry of frustration at our failure to achieve perfection in an exercise: “It’s so simple Wolfson! Hands THEN bodies! Why can’t you do it!?” For some reason I was elected (or maybe just appointed) crew captain, an apparently meaningless title in a boat, as the cox as authority on the river, and the coach off it. I was, nevertheless, honoured by this title.

By Autumn IV’s, the stern 4 were advanced enough to be entered as a four, a fairly rare event then. We did the race in Wolfson’s ancient wooden 4 “The Graduate”, and little did we know that a film crew was filming scene setting shots for the movie “True Blue“, the story of the boat race mutiny in 1987. Our wooden boat went well with the opening lines of the movie, so if you watch, you can see us lifting the boat out at the boathouse, and then ploughing down the river. (I, in my red cap in the bow seat am immortalized on film leaning to the right at the finish of each stroke.)

Apart from preservation on film, this gave us some good race experience and it seemed that we were coming together as a powerful crew. There was a sense of quiet confidence, but tempered by knowing that Wolfson had never got past the semis, and rumours abounded of the big undergrad colleges siphoning off athletic novices and sending them to intensive rowing farms to prepare them for the regatta. We did not seriously think we could win, but we expected to put on a good show. That was until we drew Merton ‘A’ in the first round. The day before our first race we saw them cruise past as we pulled our boat out of the water, 8 rowing Adonises, perfectly balancing their boat. Oh well, we thought, there is always the repecharge. Nevertheless, the first race came, and we sat tense at the start, not yet accustomed to the adrenaline that goes with a rowing start (although I still get butterflies at the sound of a five minute gun or the thought of “attention . . . GO!”). Then we were off, and after our frenetic start (in which Rob at 4 always seemed to dump a gallon of water in my lap at 7) and the stride out we could see we had left them for dead already. We cruised across the line 2 lengths or so ahead, and the quiet confidence we felt came back.

The next race on Friday, also against an A crew (I’m going to say Mansfield, but apart from a couple, I can’t remember all the crews we raced), was another comfortable victory, although nerve wracking for me as my shorts got stuck in the slide (after Rob’s water dump) and I had to row half slide from about half way down the course. I went and bought some cycle shorts that evening. Saturday arrived with us into the last 16, and again we raced an A crew first up, possibly Exeter. It was also one of those miserable November days, with incessant rain. Again, we won comfortably; it seemed we had a start that just destroyed other crews, rarely did we not have clear water by the OUBC [Univ] boathouse. Our next race was against a B crew, Jesus, and after a massage from the women’s 1st eight, we got into the boat and were told “you stay on the river now until you win or are knocked out”. I have to admit it crossed my mind that the latter would be preferable, as it would be a shorter route to the warmth of the Head of the River pub.

Waiting on the bank for the start, Lars was greeted by the opposition coach who asked him who we had beaten to get here. “Well, we have beaten Merton A, Mansfield A and Exeter A, but good luck anyway” was his response. As we sat in the gut, waiting to be marshalled forwards, we were asked by a steward “are you in this next race, Wolfson?” Our cox Jo replied, in that cut glass accent of hers “NO, WE’RE WAITING FOR JESUS”. The race itself was most memorable for our 6, Derek Kennett, appearing to have the draw out calculating who we would face in the semi-finals before we had even wound up the last 10 strokes for the finish. I remember nothing of the semi-final, other than that it was the same pattern, we left the other crew for dead at the start and the rest was a cruise. So, we were in the final now (to quote Terry Griffiths). Who were we facing? Christ Church A. The pressure of facing the hosting college in their own regatta: surely we would not be able to beat them. Off we went, frenetic as usual, a gallon of water in my lap, but this time also soaking my oar. As we strode out, Christ Church was still with us. This was new territory; how would we cope? Then we hit OUBC and the roar was incredible, we surged ahead and by the end of the boathouses we were a length in front. We had broken them. 3 strokes before the finish, I had a heart stopping moment as my oar slipped out of my hand at the finish. However, it just glided forward and I grabbed it and took the catch with everybody else. I guess it was our day. Wolfson had won Christ Church Novice Regatta for the first (and still the only time) in our history. The celebrations started with the whole boat club taking over the top floor of Bella Pasta and went on long into the night. At some stage it involved me drinking my one and only yard of ale in Wolfson bar (most went down the front). My housemates told me that despite looking like death warmed up the whole of the next day, I had a perpetual grin on my face.

It did not take long for the recriminations of an upstart graduate college wining such a prestigious event to start. The OURCs online forum was particularly active. Surely it could not be legal for graduates to train before the start of the term? (It was.) The stroke had been seen rowing in the Oxford City regatta the previous summer, which would disqualify him. (He hadn’t.) But they had photographic evidence! (They didn’t; they had mistaken him for someone else.) Not surprisingly, the Christ Church A crew we had beaten in the final were particularly vocal on the injustice of it all. What was temporarily forgotten was that any “advantage” had been present every year, and this was the first (and, I am told, only) time a Wolfson crew had won Christ Church regatta. I suspect a similar lack of success from the other graduate colleges but I don’t have the figures to hand. At the end of the day however, our victory had no impact on the rule makers, there was no change the next year and the same rules apply today.

This victory was pretty much the pinnacle of my rowing career. I almost quit after that, following the “George Costanza” Philosophy (one for Seinfeld fans) but was tempted to row in the Torpids first eight, which went down 8 places. I spent the next 3 years, including one as Captain of Wolfson boat club trying to recapture the magic of that Christ Church victory. While there were many good times and some great crew spirit my final record in bumps was something like 2 for and 13 against. I probably should have quit while I was ahead and gone back to squash and cricket, but as anybody who truly gets the rowing bug knows, that would have been impossible.

Richard Holland, DPhil 1994-1998
WCBC Captain of Boats 1996-1997