University College Women’s First Eight were crowned “Head of the River” in this year’s Summer Eights, which took place from Wednesday 27 to Saturday 30 May.

After starting this year’s races in third position, Univ needed to achieve a bump on Wadham, who were in second place in order to win the Women’s Headship. They managed to achieve this on Thursday and then went on to catch last year’s Headship winners Pembroke in a dramatic bump just before they reached the boathouses on Saturday.

Amber Ford (2023, Medicine), UCBC’s Women’s Captain, said: “We’re absolutely over the moon to have won the Summer Eights Headship. After failing to bump Pembroke on Friday, we knew it was going to be a really tough row, but we gave it absolutely everything right from the start and it paid off. We’ve been working really hard all term and all year, particularly through a very wet winter with not a lot of time on the water. The hours in the gym and the erg room paid off and it was an incredible moment that we’ll never forget!”

There were other successes to celebrate for UCBC, with W3 rising the most places of any crew on the river (+8) and M3 rising the most out of all men’s crews (+6). Across the rest of the College crews, W2 gained three places, W4 gained 4 places, the Beer Boat gained 3 places and M1 finished 5th on the river after an exciting campaign.

We will publish a fuller report on UCBC’s performance during Summer Eights in due course.

Published: 1 June 2026

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