Henley Champs

The amount of energy, physical preparation, mental endurance and everything else that gets you to the winner's stand on the Sunday of the Henley Royal Regatta is extraordinary.

Hey, forget the years of work that are required to get you to be able to compete at that elite level in the first place. There's also the Henley week itself, where rowing is held day after day after day if you keep winning.

For all that, how are you supposed to sum up the feeling in one word? 

It's actually better to sum it up without using any words. You can see that really clearly in this wonderful video that the Henley people put together after the 2024 event ended:

What's it like winning at Henley Royal Regatta? 🏆

We asked the #HRR24 Winners to sum it up in one word 🗣️ @Nyetimber pic.twitter.com/d3BPqBNxZe

— Henley Royal Regatta (@HenleyRegatta) July 7, 2024

The words? They're secondary.

Look closely at their faces. They tell the whole story.

Also, as you watch the video, you can also see some Princeton Orange and Black. For the 10th time, Princeton has produced a Henley champion.

The victory came in the Ladies' Challenge Plate, where the Tiger heavyweight first varsity 8 defeated Cambridge University in yesterday's final.

The race went off at 5:40 am Eastern time. TigerBlog made sure he was awake to watch it. He wanted to see the emotions at the end. 

For the Princeton 1V, this was the third race in three days. The course at Henley is 2,112 meters, or 1.3 miles. For three days, that adds up to 6,336 meters — that's a lot of competitive racing in a very short elapsed time.

In the case of Princeton in the Ladies' Plate, TB is pretty sure that the Tigers never trailed at any point of those three races. Its closest race was the first one Friday, when Princeton held off a charge from an Oxford Brookes boat that Princeton broke away from quickly. 

How big a deal is it to win the Ladies' Plate, which is essentially the highest event for collegiate boats at Henley? Well, the event was first contested in ... what year? Any guesses? 

If you said "1845," then you'd be correct. Since then, there has been a Ladies' Plate winner every year except for the World Wars and the pandemic. 

Princeton became the first non-UK crew to win the Ladies' Plate since 2015. It was also the second time Princeton won the event, after winning in 2006 as well.

Princeton had two finalists at this year's Henley. While the 2V didn't win, it certainly gave everything it had along the way.

The 2V competed in the Temple Challenge Cup, which only goes back to 1992. TB isn't sure which is more startling — that the Ladies' Plate goes back 179 years or that the Temple Cup only goes back 32. 

The Temple Cup is the level just below the Ladies' Plate. Unlike the Ladies' Plate, the Temple Cup had 32 boats in the beginning.

The winner would be the boat that was able to win five races in six days, with one day off in between. 

Princeton won its first race, and second, and third, and fourth. Just doing that was amazing enough.

Waiting for the Tigers in the final was a different Oxford Brookes boat. To give you an idea of what Oxford Brookes is, well, it isn't affiliated with Oxford University. It's mostly a stepping stone to the British national team program, and Oxford Brookes won six separate championships yesterday.

Princeton led for much of the first half of the race before Oxford Brookes caught up and went ahead. The Tigers hung in until the end, but hey — imagine how much you need to have left in the tank and what a toll the first four days must have taken.

Princeton's 3V also was in the Temple Cup, and the boat with all underclassmen won one and lost one. In all, Princeton boats went off in 10 races this week and won eight of them. 

There were 772 boats who started out a week ago in 26 different divisions. There were 52 who were still standing rowing yesterday, and two of those were Princeton's. 

Princeton's 1V was one of the 26 champions.

TigerBlog could ask them their emotions — or you can just see the faces in the video.