THE FIRSTS
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A RARE event for a Ballarat Clarendon College senior first crew – the entire senior girls’ crew had never rowed with another member until this season.
But the crew says that won’t be holding them back when Sunday rolls around for Ballarat Associated Schools Head of the Lake.
The boys’ crew, on the other hand, has Jack Mullen, Alex Nash and Charlie Renney, who have been rowing together for years.
Renney said he was feeling good about this year, in his second year with the open boys’ crew. “We’ve made a lot of improvements that will hopefully show,” he said.
But the girls have overcome their immediate challenge and formed a crew quickly.
Cox Bess Burgess said even though they had never competed in a regatta together, they meshed well.
Three seat Marion Peters said becoming a crew was a process that involved getting to know each other first.
“Before you get to know each other as rowers, you have to know each other as people first,” Peters said.
“And as we got closer as friends, we saw our boat going faster in the water, because we were rowing for each other and not ourselves.”
THE RIVALS
EVERYONE is a rival to College. They want to take home the victory and see their strongest competition as their strongest rival. Grammar is the defending champion for both the open boys and open girls, so the College is hoping to be very competitive.
THE TRAINING
THE girls have had a lot of work to do with this being the first year any of them has been in the same crew together. Eliza Roughead only started rowing halfway through last season and filled in with various crews, and Marion Peters, in her first year at College and previously a skuller for Ruyton Girls School, has had to adjust to the crew.
THE FLEET
COLLEGE’S rowers have all worked hard for the race that stops Ballarat. “It’s a tough race – it’s something that you’ve been working towards for a whole year,” Burgess said.
THE SUPPORTERS
THE spit crew’s preparation has been kept secret from the first crews so rowers don’t know what their fellow students have up their sleeves. College has already began their annual celebrations in the lead-up to Head of the Lake with lunchtime chants, making sure they’re ready for the big day.