For those who don’t know, Queens’ Ergs is arguably the first big rowing competition of the year and for many, the beginning of their rowing career at Cambridge.

As the rowers take to the streets of Cambridge in their droves this week, witness the ubiquitous Queens’ Ergs t-shirt and you’ll appreciate the scale of this event. Indeed, it seems that everyone has participated in this competition at some point or another.

The first test for novices, Queens’ Ergs is different to anything else on offer to Cambridge boaties. The competition involves ERGs (indoor rowing machines) in which crews of eight take turns to row 500m in a relay style battle against other college crews.

Seemingly quite simple, but as Tom Moore, a third year vet from Queens’ told Varsity Sport, “An event like this is very hard to organise and run.”

Although the night itself was plagued with technical diffi culties (the screen that showed each college’s individual placing frequently cut out), this did little to dampen spirits and the MC-ing by Chris Clarke kept everyone up to date when the screens came crashing down.

With his booming tones from the stage, Clarke created an almost gladiatorial atmosphere, announcing each team’s entry to the hall with endless gusto amidst raucous cheers from the balconies.

Results-wise, in the women’s division St. Catharine’s and Caius were in a league of their own with an average time three seconds ahead of the rest in the final. However, it was ultimately St. Catharine’s though who snatched victory in the final with an average split time of 01:50.3.

Special mention must also go to Murray Edwards and Emmanuel, who were the only women’s boats to get two boats (a novice first and second) into the final, with Murray Edwards second boat outperforming their first boat (displaying quite how little setting crews means at this stage).

The men’s novices, however, were a lot closer at the top end with Anglia Ruskin, LMBC, Fitz and Jesus all in contention. Ultimately though Ruskin’s enormous crew took it home with a brutal display of power, averaging an impressive split time of 01:30.1.

In the senior race, which was held for the first time this year to showcase some of Cambridge’s more experienced rowers, victory belonged to Pembroke after a close battle with Christ's. The format here though was slightly different, with crews being mixed.

This format certainly lent itself to an exciting spectacle as crews continously leapfrogged each other and indeed the fastest time of the evening; a blistering 01:20.4 from a member of the Magdalene crew was still only enough to see his team to a limp 10th place finish in the senior’s final.

All in all, there were some fantastic races but it being so early on in the term there’s no telling who will come out on top in Novice Fairbarns.

Whilst there were a lot of impressive times being displayed it is worth remembering that what you can do on the ERG doesn’t necessarily translate to such great form in a boat. How the novices perform on the river could be very different, but there was certainly plenty of potential shown by all crews, with a lot of proud Lower Boats Captains by the end of the event.

The focus now shifts to training together in an eight or four as the rowing season really starts to get going with some great races to look forward to this term.

Bring on the Clare Novices and Emma Sprints.