The Queen's College Record 2020

During Michaelmas, due to high water levels, time on the water was severely limited for
both novices and seniors alike. That being said the novices remained enthusiastic on
the ergs – most notably showing a strong performance at the newly christened ‘Christ
Church Ergatta’.
We opened Hilary with a four-day training camp at Eton Dorney – commuting from
Oxford daily. This was hugely beneficial for the entire men’s side in restoring and building
technique on the water that we were unable to strongly develop in Michaelmas. Although
poor weather is a reality for most years, it was the consistency of these poor conditions
that meant that this year was widely regarded to be the worst seen on the Isis in the last
40 years. As a result we returned to Dorney for some weekend training within term. The
eventual cancellation of Torpids was painful and the global pandemic wiped out Trinity
term activities, meaning that Summer Eights was cancelled for the first time since 1943.
Reports and College Activities
Despite this, a lot of progress was made as evidenced by some brilliant 2k scores at
the end of Hilary term – proving the ‘erg-athon’ that was Oxford rowing in 2019-20
paid its dividends. It is with the resilience and motivation shown this year that we will
build for the 2020-21 campaign.
BOAT CLUB – WOMEN’S ROWING
Captains: Vicki Patel, Zuzanna Borawska and Kwok Cheung
With the river unfortunately at red flag for the majority of Michaelmas and Hilary terms,
there were very few outings for any of our crews, particularly novices. Both Christ
Church Regatta in Michaelmas and Torpids in Hilary were cancelled, and then the
pandemic meant the suspension of all rowing during Trinity.
Nevertheless, we continued to train on land and we did manage to compete as a boat
club – in Michaelmas there was ‘Christ Church Ergatta’, in place of the usual Regatta.
This was a relay of 500m on rowing machines with four people rowing and a cox in
each team. Our teams included both novices and seniors and, while we did not come
close to winning, it was still a memorable experience and good team effort. In Hilary
term, many members of QCBC took part in ‘Tug of Warpids’ organised by Pembroke
College Boat Club in place of Torpids. Of course, it wasn’t completely serious and
included no rowing whatsoever but one of the QCBC teams (teams were mixed,
including both men and women) reached the quarter-finals.
Moreover, this year QCBC has been working on measures aiming to develop a more
cohesive and inclusive environment in the club. The work is still in progress and was
largely interrupted by the pandemic outbreak in Trinity, but by and large we are the first
sports club in College to start a discussion on welfare issues within a college sport
community. We hope that the measures once implemented will benefit not only the
boat club but our College as a whole.
College Record 2020 | The Queen’s College 69