Oxford win Henley Classic Open Water Race

Swimmers are known for their love-hate relationship with the sport, particularly the early morning training sessions. But whilst morning training typically begins around 6am, the Henley Classic takes things a step further with a start time verging on ‘middle of the night’. When your alarm clock is set for a time that starts with the number three so that you can get up to swim 2.1km along a river in just a swimming costume, you have to love swimming.

Luckily our enthusiastic team of eight were all raring to go when we met under the famous white marquees of the Henley Royal Regatta at 4:30am. The race follows the boomed rowing course and following heavy rainfall during the week the flow of the river was particularly strong. This did not seem to bother either Oxford team, as the dark blue hats dominated in both men’s and women’s races from the first 100m. In the men’s race there was a photo finish (although there wasn’t actually a camera) and Oxford’s James Manning was apparently narrowly edged into second place, despite registering the same time as the winner, Erik Sullivan (Cambridge). James was closely followed by Dan Manners just two seconds back in third. George Stannard was next home for the dark blues with Freddie Faulkner closing the team ahead of Cambridge’s second swimmer. Naomi Vides produced an impressive swim to lead from start to finish as the clear winner in the women’s race, with Oxford’s Lucy Farquhar in second and Jessica Mason (Cambridge) third. Laura Fenwick and Rosa Chrystie-Lowe again closed the Oxford team before the next Cambridge swimmer. These fantastic performances saw Oxford come away victorious for the third year running in the men’s, women’s and overall Varsity events and hence remain unbeaten since the event was first held in 2014.

Earlier in the morning (yes, earlier!) the main open event had taken place. Amongst the 600 odd swimmers taking part were around 50 Oxford and Cambridge students, staff and alumni competing in the Varsity Mob Match. This was by far the highest ever turn-out for the mob match and it came down to the narrowest of margins, with Cambridge taking the win by just a single point!

Thanks to the Henley Swim for such a great event and congratulations to all who took part!

We would also like to thank Metaswitch and Simmons & Simmons for their support.