Men’s Torpids
by Jaime Valdemoros Gomez [Men’s Captain]
Despite worries about the weather during Hilary term, the wind and rain cleared up enough in time for Torpids to go ahead without restrictions. A strong term of rowing ended with brilliant results for Merton’s M1, bumping up four places over the course of the week: an unfortunate crash on Wednesday left M1 with a technical rowover, however they pulled ahead by bumping St. Hugh’s on Thursday, Exeter and Christ Church M2 on Friday (the second as sandwich boat, pushing ChCh back into Div III) and finally Somerville on Saturday, leaving them firmly in the Division II and securing the best results for Merton’s M1 in Torpids since 1999. We will be pushing hard for an equally successful run in Summer Eights next term.
Merton’s M2 was less fortunate – a good term left a well-set boat, however a series of strokes of bad luck dropped them out of ranked divisions. We will continue to work hard next term and look forward to a good set of races in Eights.
Women’s Torpids
by Sally Bolton [Women’s Captain]
Day 1 – Wednesday
We started at the head of Division III and were hoping to row on into Division II later, but unfortunately a very quick Wadham W2 bumped us early on. We nevertheless rowed the full, (rather gruelling!) course and then had a good rest before day two.
Day 2 – Thursday
A well-executed bump on Exeter meant that we were head of the division once again and therefore did get the opportunity to row in Division II. We rowed over this time and therefore remained head of Division III overnight.
Day 3 – Friday
After a tiring second day, Brasenose bumped us early on and then Linacre a bit later.
Day 4 – Saturday
With nothing to lose we went out all guns blazing. As expected we were bumped by a very strong Green Templeton before the gut but then closed on Queens, who had started two bung lines ahead of us, finishing less than a length behind them. Everyone was very happy with the overall performance of the crew and we finished 4th in Division III.
Overall summary for this years Torpids:
Start: 3rd Div III
Finish: 11th Div II
M2: -5/-1/-1/-3
Start: 6th Div V
Finish: 4th Div VI
Start: 1st Div III
Finish. 4th Div III
Crews:
Bow
2
3
4
5
6
7
Stroke
Cox
Men’s
Bow
2
3
4
5
6
7
Stroke
Cox
Frederick Money
Jacob White
Benedict Holden
Edward Thomas
Daniel Kennedy
Henrik Hannemann
Jaime Valdemoros Gomez
Lukas Koch
Tiffany Brydges
– 2nd Torpid
Hristian Hristov
Alexander Eperon
Ian Dawes
David Felce
Edmund Wrigley
Michael Withers
Stefan Marjanovic
Mantas Abazorius
Sven Kirkerup
Bow
2
3
4
5
6
7
Stroke
Cox
Kristina Gedgaudaite
Rebecca Hardy
Alexandra Pike
Sally Bolton
Caitlin Armstrong
Laura King
Zijun Chen
Kailan Sierra-Davidson
Toby Adkins
both photos by Hilary Wynne.