The Tideway ran light blue as Cambridge continue their Boat Race domination. On the tenth anniversary of the Women’s Boat Race moving to The Championship Course, Cambridge powered to the finish line to secure their eighth consecutive victory. On the men’s side Oxford’s fared no better: for the third consecutive year Cambridge secured victory in the Men’s Boat Race.

WOMEN’S BOAT RACE — PUTNEY DRAMA SEALS OXFORD’S FATE

Ten years ago the first joint men’s and women’s event ended after nearly twenty minutes in a substantial win for the Oxford women. On the anniversary of that groundbreaking year, the 79^th Women’s Boat Race arguably ended after ninety seconds when the two crews clashed so badly that Cambridge ground to a halt and umpire Sir Matthew Pinsent had to stop the race to do an immediate restart. Oxford were being warned when it happened, Pinsent decided not to disqualify them on the spot but to let the restart go ahead, however since Cambridge were up when it happened and went on to win, he decided that the clash had not affected the result.

“To my mind I was absolutely clearly warning Oxford in the run-up to that,” said Pinsent. “And in that moment when you’ve got two crews at a standstill there was no way they were going to carry on racing. The clash was heavy enough that it was going to stop the race. You could DQ someone straight away — that pops into your mind — but you also can allow, after a restart, to see whether it affected the outcome of the race. Obviously in my opinion it did not affect the outcome of that race.”

The rapid-restart is a manoeuvre planned 12 years ago, in the aftermath of the Men’s Boat Race 2012 when a half-hour stoppage, realignment and restart led to rowers getting very cold. It was decided that any restart should be immediate, and this time Pinsent managed to get the crews organised and sent off again within a minute and a half. The crews knew what to expect and acted accordingly.

The rot had set in straight away as both crews veered too far to Middlesex along the Putney Embankment, a habit most of the Blue Boats have repeatedly exhibited this year during training and fixtures. It left Oxford in stronger stream during the first minute, which was how they managed to hold a super-quick Cambridge start after the Light Blue women lost the toss and were put onto the Middlesex station. But it also meant that as the two approached the Black Buoy, Cambridge cox Jack Nicholas was well within his rights to push back onto his station, hence Oxford’s warnings.

Fifty seconds after starting, the two crews were therefore heading for one another, Cambridge a third of a length up. The blades overlapped for five strokes, clashed heavily on the sixth, seventh and eighth before Cambridge five-seat Sophia Hahn caught an overhead crab as her spoon was trapped by the higher-rating Oxford blades. It took four more strokes after Pinsent called for the stop before both eights ground to a halt, one minute 32 seconds into the race. He audibly considered a straight disqualification, but decided to let the race run its course.

Resetting the crews swiftly with Cambridge a third of a length up, Pinsent restarted without delay, warning first Oxford and then Cambridge beside the Fulham Football Ground, though arguably Cambridge were still off their legitimate stream coming round Barn Elms. It didn’t bother them, a punchy long rhythm taking the Light Blues quickly just under a length ahead, though it wasn’t until they pushed at Harrods that they managed to break clear of Oxford’s determined eight.

From there to the finish it was for Cambridge to lose, but they didn’t put a single foot wrong. Three miles later, the Light Blue women won their eighth Boat Race in a row by two and a half lengths. A formidable achievement, matched by their reserves Blondie killing off the dark blue reserves Osiris by four lengths, the beginning of what was to turn out to be another clean sweep of the day. 

“When the clash happened, it’s fight, flight or freeze,” said Cambridge stroke Samantha Morton, rowing her first Boat Race. “[I] definitely froze, but thankfully had Jack telling us what to do. He said immediately ‘Stay composed, check it down, wait for the flag, and we’ll restart when we’re ready.’ He was on top of it.”

For Oxford cox Daniel Orton, speaking at the finish line, it was a matter of reacting at the time. “I don’t know, I haven’t looked back at the footage or anything like that. Ultimately, we moved when we were warned, and that’s the bottom line,” he said. “I wasn’t steering into them at all or anything like that. There was a bit of crosswind at the time which may have played into it maybe, I don’t know. We weren’t in there to go in for a clash or anything like that, we were there to just hold our line, make sure we weren’t getting too close and sometimes things just happen.”

“I’m a little disappointed by how Oxford tried to win that race but that’s their decision,” said Cambridge coach Paddy Ryan. “Pinsent was constantly warning Oxford but they just kept coming. I thought, okay well if anything happens now it’s like, you’re going to get disqualified. [Cambridge] handled it quite well and then Sophia lost her blade. Let’s face it, it’s another race that people will be watching for a while.

“I’m so impressed by Jack. He’s an outstanding young man and the athletes love him. He’s a racer, he really is. All of our coxes this year came through the college system. Matilda [Horn, CUBC Women’s Assistant Coach and former Olympic cox] has done a great job developing them.”

“When it comes to today, yeah, it’s tough,” said Oxford coach Allan French, after his second Boat Race and second loss. “What we’ve been trying to do is to move this [club] forward, and this is an incredibly impressive group of people doing exactly that. They bring that intent, they bring everything with it that they need to do this. I couldn’t be more proud, more impressed, more in awe of what they do day to day. Yes, the result isn’t what we came here to do today, but ultimately, we are putting things in place, we are making changes and, you know, we will keep pushing.”

“The wording of the rule is that you can wait to see if it affects the outcome of the race… and it didn’t,” explained Pinsent later in the afternoon. “From that moment on, if you said ‘forget everything that happened before’ from that [re]start line to the finish line, Cambridge won and that bit was a clean row.” He didn’t say, but clearly meant, that had Oxford passed the finish line first, he would have disqualified them.

MEN’S BOAT RACE — RATE AND RHYTHM GIVE CAMBRIDGE ANOTHER CLEAN SWEEP

Cambridge’s Light Blue men put together their second hat trick in a decade and seized the 170^th Men’s Boat Race with a straightforward victory over Oxford by five and a half lengths. This despite having multiple crew changes over the last few weeks, most notably a day before the race, controversies over eligibility and a lengthy delay at the start caused by debris in the water.

The offending item was a chunk of wood, but the crews were kept waiting for twelve minutes while it was searched for, missed, and another log spotted. Finally they were off, but Cambridge were warned within 15 seconds as the two eights shot off, Oxford having won the toss and chosen the southern Surrey side. As with the women’s race the two coxes erred towards Middlesex, but this time umpire Sarah Winckless chose to be firm first with Cambridge. The crews were virtually level, Oxford taking mere inches advantage as they settled passing their Tideway home, Westminster School Boat Club in the row of boathouses.

Despite further warnings, including Winckless ordering Light Blue cox Ollie Boyne “Cambridge don’t follow [the Oxford cox]: Move!” the Light Blues made a significant impact in the second minute, shifting from a seat behind to seven seats up around their tiny but useful Middlesex corner at Craven Cottage. The key was Cambridge’s high rating, comfortably sitting at 34-35 whilst Oxford were routinely two strokes a minute slower. For that to work, you need your lower-rate strokes to count for more, and that wasn’t happening for the Dark Blues.

Cambridge couldn’t initially break clear, and Boyne kept looking across at Oxford bowman Tom Sharrock until, with Harrods Depository looming, they were able to make it a full length and more. The umpire’s flag was still in use, warning Cambridge not to cross into Oxford’s water until they were clearly well in charge of the race. For a while, as the corner turned to favour Oxford, the Dark Blues seemed to be rallying, but though they held the gap to two lengths for a while, it wasn’t to last.

Four seconds at Hammersmith Bridge, shorn of spectators nowadays, became eight past Chiswick Eyot, over thirteen at Barnes Bridge and sixteen at the finish. Last year’s near-disaster when stroke Matt Edge had nearly flaked out, did not materialise, and Edge himself had just won the reserves race in the Goldie stroke seat. Meanwhile the Blue Boat completed a clean sweep of all six formal Boat Races. Another Boat Race to Cambridge, another victory for Rob Baker, their highly successful coach who had increased his rowers’ training load to fend off another desperate Oxford challenge, and described this as “the best crew I’ve ever coached, by a mile”.

“I knew what we were capable of doing,” Baker said after the race. “The guys have been unbelievable all year, we didn’t have a bad training session. I think we were under the radar, in a way. Maybe because of the [eligibility] fuss, but I knew how fast they were. We won The Head of the Charles with this exact line-up: a while ago of course, but it just showed what the potential was.”

He had been biting his nails before the race, not least because original seven-seat Simon Hatcher had felt ill on Saturday. Baker decided to exchange him with bow Luca Ferraro, as a precaution, but it was not a big upset. “Luca’s been in the stern pair of two winning boats, so it was a pretty easy switch to make, but it’s a switch nevertheless,” said Baker. “We’d tested it so much we knew that it went well both ways, it’s never a drama. But it’s not what you want to do the day before the race.”

“I didn’t think the guys rowed that well in the first 500m to 700m, but once they settled down it looked good. I thought, ‘yes, now we’re moving’. They clicked into the gear that I knew they had. There was a lot for [them] to row for today. A lot of people — including the people who couldn’t do the race. They were totally inspired by that and motivated.”

For Oxford men’s coach Mark Fangen-Hall, who is new to the club but was an assistant coach for Cambridge for four years early in the millennium, it was a miserable lesson in Light Blue dominance. “Obviously, very disappointing right now,” he said. “A lot of hard work goes into all the squads, but we said right from the get-go that it’s a multi-year operation to put in a new culture and new system. We’ll go now and look at everything we’ve done and see where we’ve got to change and develop to give us a better chance next year.”

He may have a big task on his hands with his stacked Blue Boat outgunned and outrowed. A silent partner in his enterprise is Australian legend Drew Ginn, a former boss and continuing mentor of Fangen-Hall, but Oxford were only able to have two weeks of Ginn’s time this year. New Boat Race coaches often take a while to find their feet, but solid backup in terms of fellow coaches to talk to is essential.

His President, Kiwi Olympic champion Tom Mackintosh, was his usual cheerful self despite the outcome. “Like I said before, I don’t feel like we’ve lost,” he said after seeing hordes of cheering Light Blues swigging fizz. “It’s been inspiring to be surrounded by a lot of committed athletes who have embraced a steep learning curve, so I have been very impressed all round. They were just a better crew than us on the day and sometimes that happens. Look, the race doesn’t define you and it won’t define Oxford either.”

His opposite number, Luca Ferraro, was a mixture of relieved and proud as he talked to the press, cradling the trophy. Did he worry about today beforehand? “Yes, you always do, it’s inevitable,” he answered. “With an occasion as big as this one, when you’ve put in that much work, there’s so many emotions at stake when you commit to something like that, so obviously you worry. And the release right now is epic.”

He didn’t stop worrying throughout. “As soon as you get up in the Boat Race the first thing that goes through your mind is ‘don’t crab, don’t crab’ so that was playing on loop through my mind. But the guys delivered, it was never really in doubt.”

For his six-seat it was a new experience. James Robson is set to be part of the next generation of GB rowers, but was fizzing with excitement as his crewmates chucked the bubbly around in lieu of throwing their cox into the potentially polluted Thames. “Oh my goodness we were sat on the start line for so long,” said Robson. “Just the nerves, building and building and building, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Ollie did a great job keeping us calm. Then just focusing on Luca’s back for me, first stroke then it was muscle memory from then on. Oh, such a great feeling, such a great day for the club, such an awesome experience.”

And off he went to the celebratory Cambridge dinner. Once again it will be a difficult evening at Oxford’s event, another chance to break the Light Blue streak missed, more heart-searching and vows of revenge to swear. The tide will turn one day, but not this year. For now, it’s back to the drawing board, and bracing themselves to be challengers again in 2026.