St John’s College Rowing Club (known competitively as the Lady Margaret Boat Club) put in a dominant performance at Cambridge University Boat Club’s (CUBC) inter-college University IVs 2016 throughout last week, taking victory in all four of the events for which they entered crews, while Downing College Boat Club also claimed a title in the final category.

With the competition running between the 24th and the 28th October, it was thanks to a series of sweeping victories that the Johnians triumphed in the men’s firsts and seconds races and the women’s first and seconds races, and register a level of success in the event that was completely unprecedented.

Another competition’s worth of excellent results for the Lady Margaret Boat Club, which is named after Lady Margaret Beaufort, who founded St John’s College in 1511, carried on the club’s successes of last term, during which the men’s first boat claimed two bumps to move up and hold the position of Head of the River; the men’s second boat recorded four consecutive bumps to claim blades and the women’s third boat bumped up two places too.

CUBC’s University IVs is an inter-college regatta that takes place every year in the middle of Michaelmas term and sees crews race in a knock-out tournament format – with the fixtures randomly drawn by a computer – in three different categories: men’s coxed fours, women’s coxed fours, and men’s coxless fours. In each of the event’s races, two competing crews are placed 120 metres apart – typically just downstream of the Motorway Bridge on the Cam – and they are chased each other to their respective finishes, which are also separated by 120m and are typically just downstream of the Railway Bridge, while also being timed.

A boatload of success for CUWBC at the British Championships

And throughout the week, all four crews from the Lady Margaret Boat Club were on top. In the first division of men’s coxed four category, which saw nine different crews from eight different colleges compete, the St John’s first boat overcome rivals from Christ’s and Trinity Hall to reach the final, where they strode past a spirited St Catharine’s crew by a 25-second margin to claim victory and take the crown from Peterhouse, who had won’s last year race and knocked out the Johnians in the quarter-finals in the process.

And in the second division of the same category, which featured eight crews from seven colleges, the St John’s second boat staved off fierce competition from crews from Downing, Trinity and Queens’ to secure the title.

However, Downing earned some revenge over the Johnians in the sparsely-attended men’s coxless four event: after having overcome a crew from last year’s winners Trinity (competing under their usual name of First and Third Boat Club) by a 13-second margin, they took the spoils by beating a Clare crew by four seconds.

The women’s events saw similar dominance from the Lady Margaret Boat Club. In the first division of the women’s coxed fours category, which involved 10 crews from nine different colleges, the Johnians first boat squeaked past Clare by two seconds and overcame Emmanuel by a seven-second margin to reach the final, where a thrilling race against Downing saw the St John’s crew win through.

In the second division of the women’s coxed fours category, there was a similar scenario: the three-crew competition saw Downing and St John’s second boats face off in the final, which the Johnians edged by a three-second margin.

A full list of all the results from CUBC’s University IVs regatta can be found here