Twelve months on from a dirty-water controversy, this year the toxicity has spread to the clubs in the Boat Race.
The Olympic gold medallist and former Light Blue rower Imogen Grant caused a stir last month when condemning Oxford as “slimy” for getting three Cambridge students banned from the race as they were studying for postgraduate certificates in education (PGCEs) rather than a degree, although the conservationist could also have been describing the contents of the Thames, the course for this anachronistic yet somehow endearing national event. About 200,000 spectators and revellers are expected to line the banks of the river between Putney and Mortlake to cheer on the women’s race at 1.21pm on Sunday, with the men’s race due exactly an hour later. Few watching will be tempted into the water.
The water quality does not appear to have improved since both crews were officially banned from the traditional celebration of throwing the winning cox into the river 12 months ago. Testing carried out along the four-mile route revealed E coli levels three times above the threshold for poor bathing water status, with 29.5% of samples exceeding the safe limits for entering the water. The picture is patchy, with data from Fulham Reach Boat Club showing that E coli levels on the course range from 350 units (excellent bathing waters) to more than 6,500 units (beyond poor and unsafe). When the reading exceeds 1,000, bathing is regarded as inadvisable.
Given the negative headlines surrounding last year’s event, The Boat Race Company, the organiser, will not disclose its guidance to both clubs, but post-race scenes of celebrations in the water seem unlikely.
“We don’t do any water testing ourselves, but there are clubs up and down this stretch of river that do,” said Siobhan Cassidy, director of The Boat Race Company. “We’ll be keeping a close eye on the results and issuing guidance.
“The guidance is straightforward. Wash your hands as soon as you come out, have a shower, cover up any wounds beforehand, as you would on any stretch of water.
“You’ll have to watch on Sunday. It would be unfair to talk to these guys about how to celebrate in advance, as they’re focusing on the race. I’m sure they’ll be finding lots of different ways to celebrate.”
Oxford’s Heidi Long, who won bronze for Great Britain in the women’s coxless fours at last summer’s Olympics, said: “I will definitely be washing my hands.”
The race has been overshadowed by an eligibility row which led to Cambridge’s Matt Heywood, Molly Foxell and Kate Crowley being barred from taking part because of a complaint from Oxford University Boat Club that the teacher training qualification “is a diploma and that is not a degree”. Cambridge have not let the matter rest, and a legal opinion from Blackstone Chambers was commissioned which concluded: “There are strong grounds to challenge the lawfulness of the decisions.”
The ill-feeling appears largely confined to the blazers who run both clubs, rather than the Lycra-clad athletes who row for them. At a launch event near the start of the race at Putney Bridge this week both crews mingled happily on the riverbank in the early spring sunshine, although watching Sunday’s race will be difficult for the excluded trio, as Cambridge’s George Bourne admitted.
“Those emotions and thoughts are for other people at this stage,” he said. “We’ve got a job to do. It’s not for us in the crew to spend our time thinking about these kind of things. There are nine of us in the boat, and we’re pretty focused on what we’re trying to do on race day. We have to make an effort to dial in to what we have to do.
“Everyone else in the club will be here supporting. We’ll catch up with them after the race. We have a job to do on the water and can save those emotions for afterwards.”
Cambridge have dominated both men’s and women’s races in recent years, one reason given for what Grant also described as Oxford’s “desperate” tactics in advancing the PGCE ban. The Cambridge men lead 87-81 since the first race in 1829, have won five of the past six races, and will make it a rare hat-trick if they reach Mortlake first, although those of a superstitious bent have noted that Oxford have won the past five races following an Olympics.
The light blues have already beaten Oxford once this season at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, Massachusetts, but for those involved Sunday’s race is the only one that matters. Oxford overhauled their coaching setup last summer, with Sean Bowden stepping down after 27 years as head coach to be replaced by Mark Fangen-Hall, who was recruited from Eton, having previously coached at Cambridge.
Cambridge’s dominance in the women’s event is even more pronounced (48-30) and they have won the past seven races. Victory on Sunday on the 10th anniversary of the women’s race being staged on the Tideway Course for the first time would equal Cambridge’s best winning run since the 1990s, but the returning Oxford president, Annie Anezakis, is determined to stop them. “I’m back again because I want to win it, I’m not here just to have a fun time,” she said. “Our team want to do it for each other and for the women that have come before us.”
