Christ Church at Oxford Torpids 2025

Coming into the first day of Torpids, our team was feeling more prepared, after a solid block of training, in a term where heavy rains had been disruptive to our ability to get on the water regularly. With the weather cleared and the sun shining brightly, we warmed up, stretched, and had our last team talk before the race. 

Once in the boat, we rowed up to the start-line and got in position at the front of the line of boats – the whole river went silent as we counted down the seconds until the race started. Suddenly we heard the bang of the starting gun being fired and we surged off the start with a mixture of nerves and determination. 

Despite our efforts, the first two days of racing started off slower than we hoped as we were bumped on both days and weren’t quite able to settle into our rhythm. These results were disappointing, but we knew that there was definitely room for improvement, so despite starting to feel more sore and tired, we held our heads high going into the second half of the weeks racing. 

On Day Three, our team rallied – aided by an illness substitution – and picked up our spirits as we set our minds on sticking to our race plan and rowing well together. As a result, we rowed our best race of the event by far as we built off a powerful start and chased University College’s First VIII right down the river coming ever so close to bumping them. This was a strong row over that demonstrated what we could achieve when we attacked the race hard off the start. On the other half of the boat club, our Women’s First VIII were putting on an impressive performance having managed to bump their way up to second place, with one day left to try and contest Pembroke for Headship.

On the final day, crowds of supporters lined the banks to watch the culmination of the last few days of rowing. As we pushed our boat off the bank to head up to the startline we felt confident and excited to deliver our final effort. Off the start we built speed quickly and the boat was moving well as we gained on Univ heading through the first turn and kept pushing onto them as we approached Boathouse Island. 

With the loud cheers of friends, family, and alumni roaring past us, we gave every last bit of effort that we had down the last stretch. As we crossed the finish line, we were able to create a massive gap between us and Keble, the chasing boat, but ran out of water to catch Univ. Our Women’s boat also came up just short of being able to claim headship, but their heroic efforts of the week as a whole reflected how hard they had trained. While this was not the result that we were hoping for, we were all proud of how we had turned our week around and it showed how resilient we were in the face of adversity.

The day finished off with the long-awaited Torpids Dinner where we all enjoyed a great three course meal in the Hall, wearing a mixture of suits, dresses, and various colourful rowing blazers. Our president and captains then gave speeches commemorating the hard work we had all put into making this week happen, as we looked forward to building on the lessons, we learnt in Torpids to deliver an even more successful Summer VIII’s campaign. As my first time racing in Torpids, it was an amazing and exciting experience which exemplified the passion our Boat Club has for rowing.