Rowing first for Kellogg women at Summer Eights

Congratulations to Kellogg rowers Bessie O’Dell and Anina Koehler whose W1 boat became the first ever Women’s Christ Church boat to win ‘Head of the River’ at a ‘bumps’ event, at this year’s Summer Eights.

The Summer Eights is a quintessentially Oxford event, and Trinity term’s equivalent of Hilary’s Torpids, when College rowing teams take part in ‘bumps’ races over four days.

This year the joint Christ Church/Kellogg W1 boat, whose crew included Kellogg’s Bessie O’Dell and Anina Koehler, became the first ever women’s boat in Christ Church Boat Club’s history to win ‘Head of the River’ or top position, in the Women’s division.

Bessie told us, ‘after a strong start we seized the headship on the first day by bumping University College coming into the Gut (the area of the river with a bend, and about 500 metres into the race course). After that, we easily held Univ off by several boat lengths for each of the subsequent days. There was a strong turnout of support from Kellogg members on boathouse island, so it was amazing to hear the loud cheers as we rowed past on the last day. I think it’s been 41 years of women rowing at Christ Church.

‘A couple of weeks before on 7th May, W1 also won all 7 races (in one day) at Bedford Regatta, which gave us good practise in the run up to our headship campaign.’

The men’s M1 boat, containing Kellogg’s Harrison Kieffer, Tavish Traut and cox Jude Mahmoud, also put in a great performance across the four days but, unfortunately, they were unable to take ‘Head of the River’, finishing second in their division.

Well done to everyone who took part in this year’s Eights, we hope you had a great time, regardless of where you finished:

W1: Bessie O’Dell & Anina Koehler
M1: Harrison Kieffer, Tavish Traut and Jude Mahmoud
W2: India Marsden and Holly Bailey-Burnley
M2: Federico Nebuloni, Marin Vukšić and Johannes Hartmann
W3: Millie Zhou and Sarah Guggemos