Open Water Varsity 2021 (Dock2Dock Race)

The annual Open-Water Varsity Mob Match against Cambridge is usually held in Henley, racing the 2.1km classic upstream course, but with COVID and the dates for the Henley Classic not working for either team, this year the race was held at the London Victoria Dock. So, on Saturday 4th September, 10 swimmers from Oxford made their way down to London to take on Cambridge at the 1.5km Dock2Dock race in just their swimming costumes (no wetsuits!). Despite some threatening clouds, the weather, fortunately, held out for the race !!

This was the first time the Dock2Dock had held an Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Event. The race was judged by a combined time of the first 5 swimmers (of which 2 swimmers must be female). In true dark blue style, several swimmers from the Oxford team took to their legs at the start of the race and got an early lead from the Cambridge swimmers. Despite some issues with sighting and sticking to the route, the dark blues won with a combined time of 122:54 (over 20 minutes faster than Cambridge’s combined time of 143:23). 

Congratulations to all swimmers involved, Oxford had some great results. A special mention goes to Sophie Lawrence for winning the Oxford-Cambridge race in a time of 22:33, posting the fastest women’s time over 1.5km at the event and the third-fastest time overall out of the 200 swimmers competing at the Dock2Dock event. Andrew Hong and Bertie Ansell also made it into the top 10  in the 1.5km race coming 7th and 9th in times of 23:52 and 25:11 respectively.

The important open-water skill of drafting led the Oxford team to victory, with Joseph Read, Spencer Williams and Robyn McQueen all finishing within touching distance of each other in times of 25:21, 25:57 and 25:59 respectively. 

All in all, despite the cold water, it was a great race, and well done to Cambridge for being such great competition and to our Oxford swimmers: Max Underwood, Zoe Faure-Beaulieu, Claudia Murray and Afrah Shibu for also posting excellent results.