The Italian Job

The Newcastle Quad on the way to victory at February's BUCS Head

Now apparently Italians can row.  If we’re to believe what our coach Angelo says then Italian novice women regularly humiliate our scores on the ergo.  Fed up with losing to these mythical Italian super rowers, NUBC have decided to send a small touring party to check them out and see what the chat is about.  Whilst we’re there we’ve also entered ourselves in Memorial Paolo D’Aloja Regatta. Catchy right?

That’s right Blue Star faithful, we’ve decided to test our mettle on the International scene and are up against a whole mixture of Olympians, World champions and other such rowing paeans.  Confident that they won’t able to handle our pivot we’ve sent our four top scullers in a quad to try and break some dreams.  The quad, starring Ed ‘100% man’ Ford, Murray ‘the Technician’ Wilkojc, Andrew ‘the Power’ Corrigan and Mason ‘Sicknote’ Durant, have their sights fixed firmly on the final.  Make no bones about it; this race will be the toughest any of them have faced in their rowing careers.  They will face brutal heats, semis, reps and finals against some of the best rowers in the world.  However, we would not send them just to get beaten.  The quad has posted some seriously impressive times over the season, destroying the field by an embarrassing margin at the annual BUCS head.  With some training under their belts and a new sense of crew harmony they look like a crew who could do some serious damage to some Olympic egos.

The regatta is held in Piediluco near Rome on the 23-25th April.  Although it does cut close to the BUCS Regatta, the decision has been made to unleash them on the senior world in order to give them some hardcore race experience. They are going with realistic expectations of making the final and that, in itself, would be a fantastic achievement.

The rest of the squad turn towards BUCS and our fresh attempt at prying the Victor Ludorum off of Durham, what better way to start then having four of our very own Internationals racing with us.  Very best of luck to the four of them and results will be posted as soon as we know them.