The women's 2nd and men's 3rd Torpids narrowly missed the qualifying times, leaving just three Catz boats in the main event. With a cold rain falling throughout the first day of Torpids, I had to keep reminding myself that this is what getting back to normal feels like. Oddly, as the weather improved, Catz fortunes got worse. The Captains provide reports, despatched, I suspect, from the more agreeable climes of Lago di Monate in northern Italy.

There are now two weeks to go to the Boat Races, and our original 9 triallists have been whittled down to two, and five 'spares'.

Term highlights:

• We were able to train up a fresh and strong W2. The crew came very close to qualifying for Torpids in a very competitive Rowing On (needed to be 3 sec. faster), and is on track to getting much faster next term with fitness improvements.
• W1 ended up +1 position by the end of Torpids. On the last day we were chased very closely by Wolfson II and rowed the entire course without conceding.
• We ran a successful hybrid training camp in 0th week, with online circuits and small boat outings for those in Oxford.

This term was the continuation along the long road to Torpids. We started strong in the IWLs, placing 2nd in IWL C and closing the gap between Wolfson by 13 seconds over the break. We couldn't celebrate for long though, as Covid swept through the squad like wildfire, making us miss over a week of training. We bounced right back into more racing, coming top of our divisions in both IWL D and E, although conditions between divisions varied greatly.

This term we also had the added challenge of training 20 new members. They managed to get racing experience alongside the senior members, placing in the middle of the pack in the IWLs and beating many college 'A' boats. Unfortunately, however, illness was still rife throughout the term, which also meant that our M3 narrowly missed out in Rowing On for Torpids in an extremely competitive year.

The men's 2nd Torpid racing, in the cold, cold rain, on the Wednesday (a mere 10 days before the start of the training camp in Italy)

The hitherto unprecedented sight of a Catz men's crew chasing the Headship, here on the Friday (by which time it had stopped raining)

Overall, these results put us in a good position for Torpids, which was the one race upon which we as captains had placed most emphasis in terms of goals. Over the course of the event, we not only met our goals, but surpassed them. For M1, this meant maintaining their position on the river, which was achieved after bumping up to the highest Catz men have ever been (2nd place), but then coming back down to 3rd. For M2, this meant simply moving up the rankings, which was achieved, and blades were almost acquired, unfortunately being stuck behind Oriel M2 (fastest M2 on the river) each day. We couldn't have asked for more from our squad, with their results being a testament to the hard work and commitment to training over the course of not only this term, but the last as well.

Our sights don't end here though, with our eyes now being set on a successful Summer Eights campaign, for which we have already begun training with a week-long training camp in Italy.

Augustin is one of four former Blues now rowing in Isis — a reflection of of the strength of OUBC's new imports this year. The apparent demotion is probably made more palatable by the fact that nobody in the current squad has yet won a Boat Race (OUBC and Isis' last wins were in 2017), and this year the Oxford men are favourites for both.

With two weeks to go until the heavyweight Boat Races, this weekend was the last in the series of private Tideway fixtures between the prospective crews and invited opponents, and also the men's and women's lightweight Boat Races. Today (Sunday) seven side-by-side races set off from Putney at 20 minute intervals and, in the absence of a formal river closure, hoping for the best.

The men's results will show that last week Cambridge beat Oxford Brookes, while this afternoon Brookes beat Oxford. However that's hardly the full story as OUBC were forced (the dreaded C-word) to make a couple of substitutions while Brookes opted for an almost complete upgrade of their crew by bringing in GB squad rowers, which left Isis to battle against the crew which raced the Cambridge Blue Boat (and also some spectacularly large wash from an unidentified boat which presumably didn't get the memo).

The women's fixtures mainly showed that CUWBC and OUWBC are currently the two fastest women's club crews in the country, both defeating Leander and Oxford Brookes (the top two crews from the Women's Head of the River Race last weekend) although Cambridge were arguably more convincing winners. It also showed quite a gap between the women's Blue Boats and their reserve crews, as both Osiris and Blondie were well off the pace of the Leander and Brookes second boats — too big a gap to draw any conclusions as to the relative speeds of the reserve crews. Osiris were the only one of the Boat Race crews racing in the Women's Head, where they finished 16th.

Diary