Ten years since their last win on the Championship Course there were hoots and cheers of relief and delight as Oxford brought an end to a bruising Boat Race drought. Cambridge had won the last eight editions; president Gemma King, by far the most experienced rower of either side, had won five of her six races on this course.
The Dark Blues faced a forbidding task but even throughout the years of those chastening defeats they were beginning to rebuild. And there was even more on the line this year: for Annie Anezakis, this was her last chance before graduating from her medicine postgrad, after being on the losing side on three occasions. For Olympic bronze medallist and president Heidi Long, this was a last shot at another lifelong dream before completing her master’s in September, powered by the grief of losing her father Keith – an endless champion of her rowing career – to pancreatic cancer in 2023.
Inevitably cycles come to an end; tides turn. Cambridge were bidding for a ninth straight win but their pursuit of yet more glory came to an end on a classic April day, grey with the hovering threat of downpour.
The Boat Race is simultaneously unlike any other sporting event and exactly the same.
Maybe there’s an element of masochism from the spectators, watching people suffer on the water for 20 minutes; maybe it’s the glimpse into a completely alien world, but there is a buzz around this that endures year after year. And it has all the ingredients of a classic sporting contest: tribal loyalty, skullduggery and gamesmanship, and plenty of people just there to get hammered.
As the clocked ticked down to the 2.21pm start time (designed to take advantage of the incoming tide) the banks of the Thames were lined with gilet-clad, Chelsea boot-wearing punters, drawn to the sizzle of barbecues outside the line of rowing clubs along this stretch of the river. Many seemed to have taken a side – there was significantly more light blue, or more accurately perhaps mint green, than dark blue – and a ferry was repurposed as a University of Cambridge party boat.
But although the Light Blues were overwhelming favourites in the men’s race, that party boat looked premature when Oxford got off to a lightning-quick start in the women’s. From the vantage point of the media boat, following behind, it’s hard to actually see when they set off – but the roar of the crowd, covering every square inch of space along Putney and along both banks, made it obvious.
Oxford pulled rhythmically away; long before Hammersmith Bridge there was clear water between the two boats, and by the Harrods Furniture Depository there was a boat length between them. Oxford’s history of defeats could have worked against them, but for this crew it held no weight.
Shortly before Chiswick Eyot Cambridge cox Matt Moran made the call to swerve sharply left, aiming for the calmer water along the Surrey bank. Louis Corrigan followed suit to nullify any tactical advantage, and reacted again when Moran swung well to the right after Barnes Bridge. But there was simply too much water to make up, and the Dark Blue celebrations started before they even pulled to a halt, two lengths ahead.
Australian Anezakis, last year’s president, and Sarah Marshall finally broke their duck at the fourth attempt; Long led the celebrations, after a brief pause to be sick into the Tideway from those agonising efforts; Lilli Freischem got one over little sister Mia in the first-ever battle of siblings in different boats.
Coach Allan French, who was brought onboard in 2024 and is credited for turning his squad into contenders again, was mobbed by the girls as he spoke to Channel 4. “This takes time, it’s years in the making,” he beamed. “These girls are incredible, they put their life and soul into this. It’s a brutal race, and today they made everybody so proud. Immense, absolutely immense.”
Anezakis was just as thrilled: “On top of the world. This is the best feeling in the whole world.” An emotional Long said: “It was the nine of us in the boat today, and Allan, and I wouldn’t have done it with anyone else. It was just incredible, every single stroke this year, for the whole of this year.”
There was more to cheer about for the Dark Blues as their men’s squad – widely expected to be utterly trounced – made it a genuine fight against a Cambridge side unbeaten this year.
Coxed by Tobias Bernard, who grew up racing on the Tideway and knew the river inside out, Oxford went for an aggressive strategy, clinging close to the Cambridge boat, and were repeatedly warned by umpire Ciaran Hayes to move further to the Surrey side.
The Light Blues eventually made their superiority felt in brutally rough conditions. But a boat featuring many who only learned to row at their college finished four lengths down against arguably Cambridge’s strongest team in history – a better result than last year’s boat, who came home five and a half lengths down despite being led by an Olympic champion and stacked with elite internationals.
A visibly disappointed Bernard said: “It’s a testament to how strong a crew they are, but I’m really proud of my guys. Cambridge are an incredible outfit.”
His teammate Harry Geffen, a four-time under-23 world champion for Great Britain and widely regarded as a generational talent, said there were “mixed emotions”. “Gutted to come away with a loss but proud of the way we hung on in there. That’s racing, sometimes you get the better side of it.”
Cambridge were magnanimous in victory, with French president Noam Mouelle saying bluntly: “Everyone was blown.” Cox Sammy Houdaigui said: “That was a fantastic race. All credit to Oxford, all credit to the eight rowers.”
As the Boat Race nears two historic anniversaries – a century of women’s racing in 2027, two centuries of men’s in 2029 – this felt another high water mark for the race. Anezakis was momentarily put off by getting English sparkling wine under her contact lens during the trophy celebrations – but there was no dampening the spirits as a decade of Cambridge dominance came to an end.
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