Oriel Men’s 1 Torpid will represent Oxford at the Henley Boat Races following a comprehensive victory over Pembroke on Wednesday.
The Henley Boat Races are the premier inter-collegiate rowing races in the sports calendar and involve the top Cambridge boat club racing the top Oxford boat club. The university male and female lightweight crews also race and this year’s event will be held on the fifth of April.
On a dreary day at Dorney Lake, the site of the 2012 Olympics rowing, the two crews assembled but the race was effectively over after 500 metres. In the end, Oriel won by about four boat lengths, a wide margin of victory, suggesting they would easily have bumped Pembroke in Torpids, which Pembroke won this year.
In Torpids this year, Oriel managed to bump from sixth to second place in Division One, which has no other team has managed to achieve for fifty years.
It is not clear at the moment who will represent Cambridge. Rumour has it that Caius, the top boat for the Tabs, is unavailable, so it seems probable that it will be either Jesus or Downing Colleges.
A time trial for women’s rowing will be held on Thursday morning on the Isis to decide which female crew will go forwards. Wadham, following their indomitable performance last week, seem to be almost dead certain to win.
In the meantime the next big event on the calendar for Oxford rowing is the Head of the River Race on Sunday 29 March with ten Oxford colleges currently entered.
