Washington v. Cambridge Tideway Fixture: Huskies Take Down Tabs

Washington leads at Hammersmith (Photo: © Tim Koch)
Despite traveling roughly 5,000 miles to race on (relatively) unfamiliar waters in London, the University of Washington Huskies were able to take two victories on the Tideway earlier today in their fixture against Cambridge. Both lineups included 2012 Olympians, with Conlin McCabe in the Washington crew, and GB silver medalist George Nash and Milan Bruncvik in the crew from Cambridge. Going into the racing, it looked as though the CUBC crew would benefit from a higher level of experience, with several of the Husky oarsmen having competed as frosh in 2012—though these same Washington athletes are more familiar with the Thames than most American rowers, having won the Temple Challenge Cup last summer at Henley Royal Regatta. Still, this is a tremendously impressive result for Washington, given the unusual race format and the logistics involved—also, the performance of sophomore coxswain Lisa Caldwell is not to be ignored, as the Tideway is notoriously tricky to navigate and the battle for the stream between the two crews is always intense.

For a blow-by-blow description of the racing from the chase boat, check former Cambridge Blue Boat coxswain Rebecca Dowbiggin's Twitter feed, and for a seat-by-seat comparison of the two crews from Daniel Spring (aka @fatsculler), follow the link above. Things went much better for Cambridge in the following event, pitting Goldie (coxed by former UW Husky and three-time IRA champion in the varsity eight Sam Ojserkis) against a crew from the University of London.

Thanks very much to Tim Koch for sending us the photo! See the rest of Tim's photos from the press launch on Hear The Boat Sing. The men's Boat Race is set to take place on 31 March at 430pm.

-RR

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