Path to a 1993 Henley Royal Regatta cup

In 1981, OPBC made its first qualification to Henley Royal Regatta (HRR). The crew was knocked out in the first round of The Ladies Challenge Plate ^[5] In 1990, the Henley Regatta Stewards offered a new event for students of single colleges and schools, the Henley Prize. OPBC had a talented crew who had taken the bronze medal in the Senior A eights at Ghent, and lost the final of the Marlow Regatta Open 8's to Imperial by a few feet after OPBC were impeded by Walton RC rowing in a front-loader 8. At Henley, OPBC met Imperial in the Semi-final. Imperial led by nearly a length at the Barrier but OPBC began to pull back through. At Fawley OPBC pushed, closing the gap to a canvas when one of the crew caught a crab. Imperial jumped to a 2 1/2 length lead with the OPBC crew giving chase. Down the enclosures the lead was reduced to 1/2 length but IC held on to win. The 2 man of the IC boat Pete Riley was utterly exhausted in the race and had to be removed from the boat by the emergency launch. IC raced the final with a substitute as Riley was judged un-fit to row. IC won the final comfortably with the Stewards awarding Riley an extra medal as he "had rowed in the real final." In 1991 with 6 of the 1990 boat returning OPBC fell at the quarter-final stage to Nipon University. In 1992, the Henley Prize had been renamed the Temple Challenge Cup and OPBC returned with a new crew. Disaster hit OPBC A in the second round when the stroke's seat jammed on the first stroke. The crew battled down the course with 7 men but were eliminated. By 1993 Oxford Polytechnic had become Oxford Brookes University, but the boat club still raced in "Poly Blue." In the final, Brookes met Trinity College Dublin, winning a glorious race by 3 1/4 lengths.

2000 to 2008 Olympians

2000 marked the first Olympic success of a chunk of the men's squad: Ben Hunt-Davis, Fred Scarlett and Rowley Douglas won gold medals in the Men's Eights at Sydney. Steve Williams achieved gold at the World Championships, along with Alex Partridge who won U23 gold.

Williams went on to win gold at the Athens Olympics and did so four years later. He won a World Championship event in 2005 with Partidge.

In the 2008 Beijing Olympics Alastair Heathcote, Tom Lucy and Partridge won silver. Carla Ashford and Caroline O'Connor powered into fifth in the final of the women's eight.

2009 to date, highlights

In 2009, Brookes beat Yale to the Prince Albert Challenge Cup at HRR.

London 2012 saw further success with the Chambers brothers of Peter and Richard gaining two silver medals in the LM4-. Partridge gained a bronze in the M8+.

In 2014, Brookes brought HRR's Temple back to Britain for the first time since 2006, winning against the freshmen crew from Brown. They repeated this two years later – atoning their narrow quarter-final loss in 2015 (deemed 'the Temple final on the Friday') to eventual winners A.S.R. Nereus (of the Netherlands) – by beating the 2V crew from Harvard.

In 2017, Brookes went one step further again – after setting a new course record in Ghent, as well as a domestic national record of 5:30 at Eton Dorney. They won the Temple with an entirely new crew. Thus they won for the third year in four, and snatched the Ladies' Challenge Plate (for men) with the 2016 crew. This particular double at HRR was a first for any university boat club.

In 2021, the club won the blue riband event at the HRR, the Grand Challenge Cup. They won five other events: the Ladies', Stewards', Silver Goblets, the Island and the Visitors'.^[7]

British champions

Key = 2, 4, 8 (crew size), x (sculls), - (coxless), + (coxed)

Henley Royal Regatta