The King Edward VII School 1st VII won the Old Mutual Schools Boat Race on Sunday 5 December 2010 making history as the first KES crew to win the prestigious event. Now in its tenth year, the event attracts the 1st teams from all rowing schools in South Africa.
The Oxford - Cambridge style of race format is somewhat different from the 2km sprints that we are used to. The heats which take place on Saturday are time trials - each crew posting a time against the stopwatch. After this, based on the ranking from these heat times, boats are paired off into finals. In this case, we raced against Bishop Bavin School in the A Final.
This year a very strong incoming tide and near gale force wind in places made the race extremely tactical. Our crew managed to ward of repeated pushes from their opponents to make it a nail biting affair: A mere 5 seconds separating the two crews over 24 minutes of racing - it was incredible!
This is an outstanding result for a crew that has had humble beginnings this season. The crew is relatively small, but make up for that with excellent rhythm and cohesion. The unit has 5 senior opens (Grade 11) who were sitting in the stern, as well as one junior open (Grade 10) and 2 under sixteen athletes. A great deal of credit must go to the Nicholas Tickle who showed tactical insight of a very experienced cox in only in his first season of rowing.
Congratulations!
A picture album will follow shortly... Click on the albums to the right of this blog
