Universities Boat Race 2015 Results
The NMMU Rowing club (NMMURC) attended the 2015 Universities Boat race in Port Alfred last weekend.
The NMMURC women’s A crew with coach, Blake Atherton.
The NMMURC took down two crews – the men’s A and the women’s A. Thursday saw the heats; the women’s crew had their heats first, and aimed to beat Stellenbosch University. The women’s crew Stroke, Cayla-Paige Nortjie had injured her ankle during that morning’s training session but managed to row. The women’s team claimed seventh place, beating the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN) while Stellenbosch just beat them by six-seconds. This placed them in a final against UKZN that took place on Saturday.
In the Men’s heat it was a grueling six kilometer race and the men’s crew pushed to beat Stellenbosch and The University of Johannesburg (UJ). They narrowly missed their desired spot and were placed in the finals with Stellenbosch and UJ on Saturday.
On Saturday, the women’s race was first. The conditions were rough, and the wind caused the water to be choppy and difficult. This made the race a long and hard one but the crew felt that it was one of their best races yet. They beat UKZN by boat lengths and claimed seventh placed overall.
The men rowed after the women and had a very close and exciting race against Stellenbosch and UJ. Once the boats approached the Bay of Biscay the NMMU boat managed to pull ahead and held off Stellenbosch for the rest of the race, thus claiming sixth place overall.
The fight for first place in the men’s race was against the University of Pretoria (Tuks) and Rhodes University. As the day went on the conditions became noticeably worse. This made for an intense final and resulted in Tuks claiming first place.
The women’s final was between UJ and the University of Cape Town (UCT). This final was a long and hard one; there were several clashes and restarts that left some coxes with broken ribs and the crews eager to claim a win. UJ was victorious in this incredibly close race and left Boatrace with their first gold in four years.