St Catharine's College Boat Club

Less than a foot off bumping Hughes Hall, wide round grassy and straight into a parked Caius crew. Gutted, technical overbump. -1 for the campaign. Bring on BCD!

Unfornately we were on the recieving end. Click for the rest of the story, it's really interesting. 

Federer vs. Nadal

Barcelona vs. Real Madrid

England vs. Australia

Catz W2 vs. Jesus W3

"This time it's personal" (Temple, 2017)

In the great rivalries of sporting history, little comes close to the vicious battle between W2 and Jesus W3. Under the expert leadership of coach Temple, it has resurfaced without fail every single bumps campaign. Catz have always come off worse despite usually being clearly the faster crew, in a heartbreaking series of events including subsequently being overbumped (Mays 2016) and missing out on blades (Lents 2017). Just yesterday, Jesus lacked the common courtesy to stay ahead of Hughes/Lucy long enough for us to bump them and save their skins.

There was never any doubt that we would get them. After going up +2 to bump-and-a-half them yesterday following carnage at grassy (but frustratingly missing out on a bump in the rerow), today's result was inevitable. A textbook bump in about 2 minutes, reeling them in comfortably before first post corner. Never has revenge tasted so sweet.

The current W2 would like to dedicate today's bump to anyone who has previously felt the pain of bad luck or failure to concede at the hands of Jesus W3, in particular to the long-suffering Matt Temple. Sorry Jesus.

Day 3 - Result: bumped Christ’s M2

Starting positions: Queens’ M2 - Christ’s M2 - St Catharine’s M2 - Peterhouse M2 - LMBC M3

Clean of the start, comfortably winding up to rate 42, then striding down and settling on 36 through the first corners. On station with Christ’s into Grassy Corner. James called for a push on Plough Reach and we moved on them, to within a boat-length. They fought hard to hold us off, but began to crumble half-way up the Long Reach. We rapidly closed the remaining gap, had overlap and - amidst some confusion about the cox' concession, held it up - narrowly making contact in the process and sealing the bump.

Queens’, we are coming for you.

Slightly less sunny and windy, but still plenty to be burned by, W3 prepared for a third day of tense rowing. Encouraged by our coach to row every 500 meters as if they were the first, we were told to put all our power down in the race to catch Sidney Sussex II. Knowing that they were on their way down the river gave us a psychological edge as did the lure of the forbidden 'B' word. Having bumped twice in two days we were starting to get a taste for it.

With the usual coming forward on 12, blades in on 8 and smile on 4, we were ready for the start. Again we set off slightly anxiously knowing Clare would be looking for the revenge bump, but hoping Caius would catch them first, we chased down Sidney. Our starts having much improved we set off well and zoomed over the water. Sidney had no chance as we gained water rapidly, and once again under the motorway bridge we had that all important bump. 3 whistles and it was in the bag. Manouvering ourselves to the side of the river we watched as Caius managed to bump Clare, enjoying the May bump spectacle secure in the knowledge that our own bump put us in the best possible position for the final day.

Wish us luck for tomorrow!