A dramatic week of May Bumps saw W1 overcome a challenging start to claim Head of the River, as M1 slipped to third place.
Caius had four women’s crews and three men’s crews in action, and there was plenty to celebrate despite none of the crews claiming blades (for four consecutive bumps).
When Lady Margaret (St John’s College) bumped Caius W1 on Wednesday’s opening day, W1 fell to third in Division One. W1, featuring Blues Carys Earl (Medicine 2021), Charley Craig (Natural Sciences (Physical) 2020), Margaux Riley (History 2021) and Lucy Havard (History PhD 2022) and Charlotte Heeley (Architecture 2017) as cox, rowed over on Thursday’s second day before surging in the final two days.
They avenged the day one bump by catching Lady Margaret on Friday and on Saturday, with scores of alumni watching, they caught Jesus College’s W1 crew to claim the Headship. After a , W1, pictured above, were elated.
There were contrasting emotions for M1, who were bumped by Lady Margaret on day one and by Magdalene on Saturday’s final day to slip to third. M1 had claimed Head of the River in 2019, and retained their place in 2022 and 2023 following the Covid-19 pandemic.
M2 began the week in the top division, but were twice bumped to slip down, only to respond with a bump of First and Third (Trinity College) to finish top of Division Two.
Bumps on Wednesday and Thursday left Caius M3 thinking of blades, but they rowed over on Friday and were bumped on Saturday to finish one place higher than they started, at 16th in Division Three.
W2 likewise began with two bumps, of Robinson and Pembroke W2 before rowing over on Friday. A bump of Darwin on Saturday saw them finish 13th in Division Two. W3 climbed two places in Division Three, bumping Queens’ W3 and Newnham W3 while also twice rowing over. W4 rowed over twice and were bumped twice to slip to 16th in Division Four.
Updated on June 25: W1 received the Ladies' Mays Headship trophy after it was handed over by Jesus College W1.
Crews list
M1: Cox: Eleanor Bakewell; Matt Francis; Jon Morgan; Dan Toy; William Wauchope; William Morris; Jack Campbell (CoB); Aleksandr Bowkis (Men’s captain); Jamie Maxen.
W1: Cox: Charlotte Heeley; Olivia Gray, Michelle Crees, Carys-Anne Earl, Julia Michniowska, Lucy Havard, Mia Bentham, Margaux Riley, Charley Craig.
M2: Cox: Katherine Elbro; Inigo Holman, Javier Sanchez-Bonilla, James Hindson, Ben Burgess, Sam Bojarski, Alex Lapsley, Enrico Mariotti, Zaki Hossain.
W2: Cox: Finean Chetham; Honora Verdone (Women’s co-captain), Mila Marcheva (Women’s co-captain), Liv Conway, Charlotte Franke, Butterfly Paterson, Anna Farrow, Hermione Peart, Natasha Treagust.
M3: Cox: Esther Magedera; Josh Richmond, Jamie Fardon, Aidan Jones, Tom Brennan, Ewan Williams, James Gresty, Arun Atwal, Ethan Metayer/James Cater.
W3: Cox: Joshodeep Sarma; Caroline Birkner, Hannah Eggleston, Anne Machel, Annabel Mackay, Valentine Bachelez, Katrina Shipley, Citlali Flores, Livi Crewe
W4: Cox: Misha Patel; Saskia Edwards, Ellen Brewster, Grace Kim, Eva Fisher, Alice de Groot, Shruti Janakiraman and Lisa Yu, Kate Greenaway and Cicely Day, Gina Sangha.
