Bridget Fryer displays presidential prowess at Cambridge University Athletic Club as Oxbridge get ready to face Harvard and Yale

Bridget Fryer is a dab hand at being a president of an Oxbridge sports club.

The 27-year-old Downing College structural engineering PhD student currently has the reins at Cambridge University Athletic Club, but she was previously the figurehead of Oxford University Women’s Boat Club.

“I don’t know of anyone else that has been president of two university clubs because most people, in order to be president, you spend quite a lot of time doing one sport,” said Fryer.

“I managed to get reasonably good at athletics, reasonably quickly.

“It was such a long time ago that I was president of the boat club that I forgot how much work it was. It’s also different being a PhD student, your time is much more flexible.”

She was president of OUWBC in 2013, as the plans started in earnest to move the Women’s Boat Race to the Tideway.

Fryer had taken up rowing with her college, Oriel, at Oxford and trialled for the Blues in her second year, but not long into the season was in a car crash and broke her spine, dislocating vertebrate.

It ruled her out for the middle half of the season, however, she recovered to stroke reserve crew Osiris.

It took quite a toll racing and getting back to full fitness, and the knock-on effect was stress on the muscles which caused a shoulder injury and ruled her out of the boat during her year as president.

With knee injuries sustained skiing – she was a fresher in the Dark Blues ski team – requiring three surgeries and someone else’s ligament, it made rowing difficult.

In her fourth and final year at Oxford, Fryer was invited to go down to Iffley Road to help the athletics team.

“I had done discus a little bit at school,” she explained. “I vividly remember people picking up the discus at school and chucking it and mine being the only one that had any spin and went anywhere.

“When I started here and realised how bad my knee was and that I wasn’t going to be able to row, I picked it up again to do as my main sport.”

That was after two years working in London, and now Fryer is fully immersed again in the sporting world at Cambridge.

It had never been the plan to stand as president of CUAC but, as no-one else was running for this academic year, she was persuaded into doing so.

Fryer offers an insight into the differing demands of the rowing and athletics clubs.

“I think the athletics is a much bigger task, even though it’s probably not as prestigious a role as being president of the boat clubs,” she said.

“With the athletics you are somewhat on your own organising everything. You have a committee, but you don’t have an executive committee looking after you or with a grand plan.

“I raised quite a lot of money via sponsorship and alumni which was the sort of thing taken care of by executive committees when I was president of the boat club.

“There is a certain amount of managing the team. With the boat club, that was primarily the coaches role.

“Here, it’s much more if I don’t get stuff done then no-one else is going to do it. I think it’s a much bigger role being president of the athletics club than it was to be president of the boat club.

“To some extent, being president of the boat club was a little bit ceremonial. There was a lot to do but the way it’s changed over the years – it used to be being president of the boat club was a huge task, but now with all the sponsorship money and administrators, it’s a lot more about being a team leader, issuing the challenge and doing interviews.”

But she added: “It’s nice being good at discus but I miss the team element of rowing.

“There is also something about winning in rowing which is quite different to anything else.

“You are so exhausted and so on the limit of your abilities it feels extra special.”

Fryer will captain the women’s joint team of Oxford and Cambridge this Saturday and is looking forward to the unique challenge in the 125th year since the first ‘international’ athletics match – between Yale and Oxford – of facing Harvard and Yale, and the century of the Achilles Club.

“It’s not as intense as varsity because for the Americans they are here on tour and it’s a bit of a special occasion,” she said.

“The transatlantic is a much more friendly thing, it’s really nice. We also compete as Oxford and Cambridge together, so we cross the boundaries.”

The action starts with the national anthems for the US and the UK at 11am at Wilberforce Road on today (Saturday, June 29).

Track and field events begin at 11.15am and finish at 3.45pm.