Having come away with only a moral victory from Emma Sprints (Leonidas’ boat speed was vastly superior to Peterhouse’s), the crew were hoping to come away with a bit more from Clare Novices. However, things didn’t bode well when the draw came out, Leonidas being pitted up against Emmanuel’s NM1. One of the stronger boathouses on the river, they had already sent out a message to other crews this term as they had won Emma Sprints the previous week over roughly the same course. Despite this, the crew went down to the river with the drive to prove themselves after the disaster of the previous week. Things were set up for almost exactly the same drama as the previous week, being drawn again on the meadow side, and Emma also being involved again. And drama there was. Being drawn on the meadow side gave Leonidas a ¼ of a length or so head-start in order to account for the curve of the Reach to the right-hand side. An epic scrap ensued. Off the start it was not apparent which crew was the stronger, with no ground being yielded by either party. However, Emma started to show the boat-speed that had won them Emma sprints, as they began to slowly creep up on Leonidas. However, much credit must go out to Leonidas, as they did not allow this to unsettle them. As Emma creeped out to a lead of ½ a length, Leonidas’ cox (Jess Foster) called for a big power 10 to bring them back, this stopping the gap widening and reversing in size. However, it is at this point, halfway through the power 10 that the race ended. This is because throughout the course of the race, Emma’s cox had been unable to deal with the windy conditions that so commonly plague the Reach, and had been drifting across to Leonidas’ side of the river. They failed to correct this line despite numerous calls from the race umpire telling them to move across, eventually resulting in them crashing into Leonidas and causing them to be disqualified from the race. And so Leonidas claimed their first ever race victory, and in doing so causing one of the upsets of the competition in knocking out the winners of Emma Sprints in the 1st Round. The majority of the plaudits for this race victory must go to the Jess the cox as she kept her nerve despite the looming Emma boat heading towards her. By keeping to the best possible racing line and not backing away, she made it very clear to the marshal the infringement that Emma were making. A cox to watch out for in the future methinks.
However, the draw was no kinder to Leonidas in the 2nd round than it was to them in the 1st Round. This time, Leonidas was presented with FaT NM1 as their opposition. It is true that Leonidas drew with them in Queens’ Ergs; however, it had become clear that they had spent a lot of time on the water since them. One of Leonidas’ bank party had seen FaT NM1 on their row up to marshalling for their 1st Round race and had initially mistaken them for a senior crew. However, with one scalp in the bag as well as a first race win, Leonidas went into the race with the die-hard attitude that characterises Selwyn crews.
Leonidas’ second race of the day was filled with nearly as much drama as their previous race. In between races the bowball had to be epically taped back onto the bow due to the crash in the previous race with Emma (big thanks to the Clare boatman for lending us the tape). Unfortunately, despite a very large amount of tape being used, the bowball fell off at some point between marshalling at the start and the end of the race. In hindsight, the race should’ve been cancelled as it was unsafe for Leonidas to be racing, but this fact escaped the notice of the umpires and both sets of bank parties. The actual race itself was also very exciting. It took almost exactly the same course (literally!) as the previous race. Again Leonidas were drawn on the meadow station, and again their opposition steered towards them off the start line. The only difference this time was that the FaT cox did actually attempt to steer away on the marshal’s call. Despite repeatedly drifting back and forth into and out of Leonidas’ side of the river, and repeated calls of “Final warning FaT!” from the marshal, Leonidas weren’t granted their second race win by default. This was a fair call by the umpire not to disqualify them as there was no blade clashing that could have impeded Leonidas, and Jess was able to hold her line. Yet again, against much fancied opposition, Leonidas held their own. But, not due to lack of effort, FaT did start gradually pulling away from Leonidas. But even when FaT had pulled away to a length and a half lead at the Railway Bridge, Leonidas never stopped trying, putting in the planned power 10s when they were needed and only finished a respectable 2 lengths behind FaT. This was a fair result, with the larger talent pool that FaT had to choose from being too much for Leonidas to overcome. FaT then went on to beat Clare Hall A in the Quarter-final by the same margin before succumbing to the eventual winners LMBC A in the Semis by just 1 length. Therefore, the crew should be very pleased with the way they rowed in the regatta as a whole, particularly against such tough opposition. Their rowing was long and strong (something they had struggled to achieve in previous training sessions) and their technique didn’t go to pieces neither in the latter points of the race due to tiredness, nor when they were under pressure from a faster crew. Thus it can be said that a massive improvement had been made from Emma sprints the previous week, showing how important any form of race experience is. It is with these two good performances behind them that Leonidas move into the final stage of training for the term, the big build up to Novice Fairbairns next Thursday.