With no Biannual Channel Swim in 2019, the Cambridge open water season was geared towards our annual varsity race at Henley.

The swim was 2.1km upstream along the Henley regatta rowing course with the race start at 5:40am. This year the varsity swimmers were combined into the “performance wave” of the Henley Classic Swim to add to the competitive feel. All the Cambridge team put in strong swims to be proud of, especially considering how new to open water swimming some of them were. Special mentions go to Naoki Toyomura and Evie Anema as the fastest Cambridge man and woman respectively.

Sadly, our efforts were in vain and Oxford won both Men’s and Women’s Varsity. However, the Women’s Varsity was closely contested with Oxford only narrowly coming out on top. There were no alumni races this year, but Cambridge did win the mob match for the 5th consecutive year. The Cambridge team reflected the strong diversity in open water swimming with pentathletes, triathletes, swimmers and water polo players all involved.

Cambridge results: Naoki Toyomura (32:15), Matthew Chadwick (35:27), Evie Anema (35:30), Eve Hull (35:42), Meghan Mulhern (35:43), Kit Gallagher (36:22) and Abbie Currington (45:24)