About Summer Eights
At Oxford University, Eights Week, a bumps race constitutes the main intercollegiate rowing event of the year, and happens in the fifth week of the summer ('Trinity') term, in May. Men's and women's coxed eights compete in separate divisions for their colleges, some colleges entering as many as five crews for each sex. There are seven men's and six women's divisions, for a total of 158 boats and around 1400 participants. Including the qualifiers (named 'Rowing On') the number of participants was in 2003 was over 1800.
The racing takes place on the Isis (part of the River Thames), a river too narrow for side by side racing. For each division, thirteen boats line up at the downstream end of the stretch, each cox holding onto a rope attached to the bank, leaving around 1.5 boat lengths between each boat. The start of racing is signalled by the firing of a cannon, each crew attempting to progress up their division by bumping the boat in front, while avoiding being bumped by the boat behind. Once a bump has taken place, both of the crews involved stop racing and move to the side to allow the rest of the division to pass. They then swap places for the next day's racing, or if the bump occurs on the last day's racing, for next year's racing.
The ultimate aim of a crew is to become "Head of the River" (top of the first division) and stay there. This entitles the winning crew to commission trophy oars in their college colours with the names and weights of the successful crew on them - commonly called 'winning blades'. As this is only possible for crews already near the top of division one, another way to win blades is to bump on each day of the competition. As the responsibility for awarding blades to crews rests with the individual colleges concerned, there are slight differences in the criteria required.
(Contains extracts from the Wikipedia Original Article)
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