Lent Bumps 2012: Day Two Round-Up

On Day Two of Bumps, the lower divisions once again brought plenty of carnage.

Near the bottom of the men’s charts, Girton III rowed between Corpus II and Selwyn III with a footplate that broke during their start sequence while Queens’ IV, after the unfortunate ejector crab and bow-breaking crash that left them unable to start yesterday, rowed over.

The saga of the bizarre overbump around two crews who got technical rowovers continued today – Emma III, who got overbumped yesterday and received a comedy fine for celebrating beforehand, bumped up today while Christ’s III, who caught them, were bumped by Pembroke III. The charts down there could now hardly look stranger, especially with the back-and-forth bumps exchanged by Queens’ III and Wolfson II just above.

In the men’s third division, Hughes Hall continued their rapid rise through the charts. With two former lightweight triallists and some experienced personnel down the boat, they are moving swiftly through the 2^nd and 3^rd boats surrounding them.

The third division also saw a huge pile-up at Grassy Corner which involved 5 or 6 crews and Selwyn II who had completely impaled themselves on Peterhouse II’s stern. The umpires duly fined them for attempting to form a 16-man boat.

The M2 division had their day off today, and Catz had the benefit of racing as a sandwich boat in M1 without having to race two divisions in a day. They failed to capitalise on this, however, and rowed over after Robinson above them bumped Fitz well before First Post. Girton, after a very scrappy row, caught Emma in the same place, leaving Catz to row the course behind Christ’s and King’s who ended up bumping out on the Reach.

Mid-division, Peterhouse closed significantly on Jesus but failed to seal the deal after a “terrible line around Grassy Corner” (quote CUCBC). Jesus went on to bump Tit Hall on the Reach, proving themselves after not having raced all term. Tit Hall will now face Peterhouse tomorrow who will be hungry for the bump.

At the top of M1, Caius defended their headship against a solid Downing while FaT were caught by LMBC towards the finish, beyond the railway bridge but before the men’s bottom finish.

The women’s races today held some unexpected results as well. Maggie II were bumped back by Emma II after some rather poor cornering, reversing yesterday’s bump and paving the way for a solid Girton rowover.

Murray Edwards somewhat unexpectedly failed to catch Peterhouse, who remain head of the second division after Churchill and King’s also reversed their bump from yesterday. Caius rose today, catching Tit Hall in the gut, while Jesus somewhat unexpectedly (due to the lack of results from them) bumped Queens’.

At the top of the division, Downing rowed over without trouble, but it looks like Emma took heart from their performance yesterday: they managed to bump Pembroke and will get their shot at the headship tomorrow (and potentially on Saturday).

Christ’s, hailed as the crew to watch and predicted to win blades by nearly half of the users of online prediction game BumpIt, failed to bump First and Third today, who will be pleased with their performance.

You can see how all the action unfolded here. Tomorrow all except M3 will be racing, and The Tab will be bringing you live updates on every race from 12.30.