Crews turned up in the freezing cold on Saturday in order to stamp their early authority, the City of Cambridge’s Winter Head-2-Head providing the first race of term. 4km overall, crews raced from the railway bridge to the motorway bridge and back again, with the lowest cumulative time taking away the prize.

Town crews and those from outside Cambridge competed against the pick of the Colleges including the stand out men’s crew from last term, Queens’ M1, and the First and Third Downing Crews. First and Third Women were looking to press on from their outstanding Fairbairn Cup win at the end of Michaelmas, whilst Emma were looking to take as much time from them as possible ahead of what will be a fascinating race for Women’s Lent Headship.

This event was an ideal opportunity for crews to integrate the novices from last term into Senior rowing, adding to the experience of racing over longer distances.

Queens’ M1 and FaT W1, picked up where they left off from Fairbairn as they both powered to victory in the Winter Head to Head, despite strong competition from Downing college M1 and W1. Queens’ M1 led the charge in the Men’s division with a time of 13:04, with their upstream leg in particular being too hot for the other crews to handle. Downing (13:20) and LMBC (13:34) filled second and third places. In the women’s division, FaT, as expected, comfortably held off Downing (15:44) and Christ’s (15:55) with a time of 15:32. Emma, current holders of the Lent Headship, will be worried about their performance as they languished a full 46 seconds behind FaT in 4th.

Looking further down the divisions, Sidney Sussex M1 and Queens’ M2 will fancy their chances of moving up the second division of Lent bumps after finishing first and second, whilst Selwyn W1 will be concerned about sliding down the bumps chart as Sidney Sussex W1 and Murray Edwards W1 posted faster times, despite being a division below.

Emma M2 provided a moment of hilarity for cold spectators as they managed to do the previously unthinkable and capsize an 8 outside the Pike and Eel, commonly known as the Penny Ferry. With the Cam being particularly chilly this time of year the experience cannot have been pleasurable for the crew, but was undoubtedly enjoyable for their rivals.

Whilst the results of this race do not have too much bearing on Bumps, with four weeks improvement still in the crews, you have to fancy Queens’ to climb up the men’s first division, whilst Emma W1 will have to pull out all the stops to stop FaT regaining the headship they lost last year. Crews will have further chances to race at Newnham Short Course and Robinson Head before Pembroke Regatta next month.