The Boat Race

The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race is tomorrow afternoon.

It’s the 154th race and the 10th that I’ve vaguely, personally cared about the outcome.

The event is televised nationally in the U.K. and thousands of people turn out to watch from the bridges, pubs and paths along the Thames. In spite of three years living in London, three years at Cambridge and nearly ten years of rowing, I’ve never been one of them – and this year, I won’t even get to watch online.

I think there are families for whom the race is a calendar fixture. Not mine. I was actually brought up to look down on all exercise – who wants to please an English P.E teacher, seriously? English school sports are designed entirely to torture the life and soul out of pupils. Fact. None of that fun ‘it’s the taking part that counts’ stuff that you have here.

I told people that I wanted to try rowing because, confined to the Fens, I would miss the sea. I think really I wanted to try because at some point in my life, the magic of the boat race had got to me. It is a big event in the U.K. – even families as staunchly uninterested in sports as mine are unlikely to be able to avoid it – and a lot of people with no attachment to either university will tell you they have a preference for the dark or light blues.

It really can be exciting to watch, even with no understanding of the sport. You see, there’s actually a third competitor in the race and one with no affiliation – or bias – for either of the blue boats. It’s the English weather.

The race takes place either at the end of March or beginning of April – not a season known for reliability of temperature or precipitation - and in a country known for nothing so much as the unreliability of its weather. The part of the Thames that forms the race course is known as the Tideway – that’s right, it’s tidal. There’s gravity and other superhuman forces at work.

All this, plus the fact the course, at over four miles, is longer than an Olympic course (a measly two kilometers) and bendier than an English plumbing system.


(It could be a u-bend pipe).

Last year was a good, close race. I can’t promise it won’t be a wash out this year, with the (slightly) heavier Oxford powering through the tabs, or the American-fuelled Cambridge crew muscling past the dark blues – but the weather could very well play an entertaining part this year, with the forecast for 20-mile-an-hour boat-swamping winds.

When the gun goes off I’ll be somewhere over Siberia, on my way to Hong Kong for work Monday morning. (Not bragging – it’ll probably be my only glitzy business trips of the year and of course fate has conspired with my bosses to ensure it will stop me from watching probably two of the few sporting events I care about – the boat race, plus Portsmouth in next weekend’s FA Cup semi final…) If, however, you find yourself with a spare 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon (evening in the U.K.), watch online here at the official site. But first, decide – are you with the light blues?



or the dark?