Will Cambridge Continue Unabated?

© Benedict Tufnell

It’s the tenth anniversary of the Women’s Boat Race relocating to the Tideway. Will Cambridge win again, or can Oxford’s women finally turn the tide? On the men’s side Oxford supporters are hopeful their new coaching team will incite an era of Dark Blue dominance: has the Cambridge juggernaut run it’s course or is there life yet in the Light Blues? Here’s a recap of the recent run of form and who to watch out for come race day.

Eight ways to Sunday

Should Cambridge win this year’s Women’s Boat Race it will be their eighth consecutive victory: equalling their run in the 1990s and four shy of their longest winning streak of thirteen victories from 1952 to 1975 (the race didn’t happen every year). Oxford are determined to stop them.

The 2024 Oxford Blue Boat came within a few feet of snatching an unassailable lead and shutting the door on Cambridge’s winning streak. As their victory march faulted then failed, a desperate Joe Gellett, Oxford’s cox, tried to get Cambridge disqualified; first attempting to bump the Light Blues as they passed and then appealing the result at the finish line, both to no avail.

Cambridge’s Chief Coach Paddy Ryan said he had spent most of the race with his head in his lap unable to watch, such was the drama. Rattled? Cambridge certainly left it late before hitting their rhythm and rowing to victory.

Arguably Oxford’s muchheralded revival was derailed long before the two sides met beneath Putney Bridge. A freak bike accident the night before the crew announcement at Battersea Power Station, saw Lucy Edmund fracture her arm.

In an already fraught pre-race period, Oxford’s stress and anxiety soared. A medley of phone calls and appointments ensued as they established whether the former Yale athlete could still race – all while trying to keep Cambridge none the wiser. The fracture was stable. Edmunds was back in. Still though, it forced a hasty reshuffle of the crew order, and meant coin toss winners Oxford picked Middlesex (an unorthodox choice) to protect Edmunds from aggravating her injury in the event of a blade clash.

“I’m not here just to have a fun time. We want to do it for each other and for the women that have come before us.”

The Light Blues reigned victorious for another year.

For President Annie Anezakis, Oxford’s 2024 Blue Boat strokewoman, it’s personal. “I’m back again because I want to win it, I’m not here just to have a fun time,” she said, six weeks before this year’s race. “Our team want to do it for each other and for the women that have come before us.”

Anezakis will be joined by twotime Oxford Blue Sarah Marshall, another lynchpin athlete hunting her first Boat Race victory. The duo will support strokewoman, Heidi Long. The Paris Olympian is Oxford’s most decorated oarswoman this year, a powerhouse rower with razor-like focus and commitment.

It’s a combination that Chief Coach French identified early, and has stuck with throughout the campaign. He has tested his provisional Blue Boat against the likes of London Rowing Club and Molesey Boat Club, each time they have proved themselves a tricky crew to crack.

Kyra Delray, in the seven seat, is the fourth member of the stern four. Confined to the physio table for much of the early season, Delray has recovered from double hip surgery in order to race. A heavy hitter, Delray has international pedigree as a world medallist for Great Britain. A year in and French has had time to instil more of his ideas and embed a positive culture. The seeds of self-belief have been sown but if the Dark Blues are to win then they must trust in their capacity to outrow Cambridge come race day.

It won’t be easy. Cambridge are in the ascendancy and have momentum.

They showed early promise in their first fixtures before getting trounced by an an Olympian-laden Leander crew in early March. That said, racing full-time elite athletes was always going to be a stretch. Cambridge bounced back and finished third at the Women’s Head of the River Race on International Women’s Day.

Coach Ryan, whose 2022 Cambridge Blue Boat still holds the Women’s Boat Race record, has all-star American power in the middle of this year’s line up. Team USA Olympian Claire Collins is the standout Light Blue recruit. She competed at Tokyo and Paris, and is a 2022 World Championship medallist. Collins stroked the early iterations of the Cambridge Blue Boat but is likely to sit at six.

Their new strokewoman is Hong Kong born, ex-Penn athlete Samantha Morton. The former Under 23 world champion switched from swimming to rowing during her ‘Covid gap year’. In the run up to Paris she spent time in the Australian women’s eight. She was an Olympic spare in 2024 but will be a strong prospect for LA 2028. Morton will be backed up by seven seat Tash Morrice, who is a British silver medallist from the 2023 European Rowing Championships.

“Statistical quirk or superior scouting? Oxford’s men seem to have the upper hand when it comes to post-Olympic Boat Races. They’ve won the last five.”

Cambridge also benefits from the experience of two former winning Blues, Carys Earl and Gemma King, as well as former Blondie athletes. Selection for the final seats was fierce: one of the last selection battles saw three rowers separated by 0.3 seconds. It’s a sure sign that the Light Blues are unlikely to yield their winning ways easily.

New order

Statistical quirk or superior scouting? Oxford’s men seem to have the upper hand when it comes to post-Olympic Boat Races. They’ve won the last five. The last post-Olympic Cambridge triumph was in 2001, when Steve Redgrave was settling into life after rowing and everyone realised Y2K fears were all a bit of a fuss about nothing.

More recently the Light Blues have the edge. The Cambridge men have won five of their last six encounters, a win this year would give them a hat-trick.

In 2023, Cambridge cox Jasper Parish cemented his place in Boat Race history when he pointed his bows towards the Fulham Wall and cut the first Middlesex Bend. Twenty-odd minutes later he and his Cambridge crewmates, including his brother Ollie, joined the celebrations at Mortlake where the other victorious Light Blues awaited, all drenched in Chapel Down’s finest fizz.

The year after the Cambridge clean sweep, Oxford supporters might have expected to glimpse a famous fightback as Cambridge strokeman, Matt Edge, began to fade fast in the second half of the race. Despite an ailing Edge, the Light Blues held on again. The 2024 margin? Three and half lengths.

Cambridge are on a roll so what are Oxford going to do about it?

A wholesale change in Oxford’s coaching setup kick-started their 2025 campaign. Legendary Boat Race coach Sean Bowden stepped down after 27 years at the helm. His successor Mark Fangen-Hall, whose late father famously rowed at and coached Cambridge, came over from Eton. Curiously Bowden and Fangen-Hall both cut their teeth at Cambridge University Boat Club. Indeed Fangen-Hall’s first day coincided with the current Cambridge Chief Coach Rob Baker’s start at CUBC too. Small world.

Another talking point is Oxford’s choice of President. The Dark Blues elected an outsider with zero Boat Race experience. New Zealander Tom Mackintosh was not even enrolled at Oxford when he was elected as President. An interesting choice. The Olympic champion brings a stack of silverware and rowing knowledge but lacks time on the Tideway. So how important is Boat Race experience for a Boat Race President?

The Boat Race is a unique race and tactical nous comes into play but, frankly, that’s often overstated. In-race decision-making rests in the hands of one or two key members, namely the cox and the stroke.

As long as the rowers have a solid feel for the landmarks then fitness, mental strength and technique remain the key variables.

Mackintosh loves a challenge. Two years after winning the men’s eight Olympic gold in Tokyo he had the audacity to switch to the single, the loneliest of boat classes. In his first international meet as a single sculler he beat the reigning Olympic champion, and two months later medalled at the World Championships.

Mackintosh is a huge asset for Oxford. He exudes confidence and has the smarts to get to grips with the fundamentals of The Boat Race. Even if the difference between Middlesex and Surrey, Hammersmith and Harrods, Barnes Bridge and the Black Buoy, eludes him, I’d still have him in my crew. Racing boats is what Mackintosh does best.

The roll call of Oxford Olympians doesn’t end there. American Nick Rusher won bronze in the men’s eights at the Paris Olympics. His parents are both two-time Olympians (1988 and 1992) and his sister, Alison, competed at the Tokyo Olympics. In front of the American is Italy’s European silver medallist Nicholas Kohl, who finished fourth in Paris in the men’s four. Even without these star names Oxford’s line-up is littered with talent, former Blues and age-group world and European medallists.

So Cambridge supporters ought to give this one a miss then? Well no, not exactly.

Coach Baker has a habit of pulling off the unthinkable. His charges this year include two Team GB ‘nearly men’ who are hungry for success. James Robson was the spare for the British Olympic team in Paris and George Bourne just missed out on Paris qualification in his single scull. Former St Paul’s schoolboy Douwe de Graaf is another one to watch – the GB winter trials winner is on the up and up. The fact that Goldie is filled with returning Blues is another indicator that the Blue Boat will be razor sharp.

Already this season the Light Blues have beaten Oxford at the Head Of The Charles Regatta and duked it out with international standard eights on the Tideway during their fixture series. As yet, Baker’s boys haven’t reached their limit: they have total belief in the programme and an uncanny confidence to race, and race hard.

It will be a race for the ages. Oxford ought to be on-paper favourites, but you can never write off Cambridge.