Video report by ITV News Sports Reporter Chris Skudder
Cambridge’s latest stranglehold on the Boat Race continued as they pipped Oxford in each the lads’s and ladies’s occasions by lower than a size in a singular 12 months for the standard showdown between the 2 universities.
For the ladies, it was their fourth successive win over Oxford, prevailing by lower than a size in a singular 12 months for the showdown between the 2 universities.
Oxford had been repeatedly warned by the umpire for encroaching on their rivals’ line however Cambridge held their nerve, establishing a slender lead after midway which they by no means surrendered as they triumphed on Sunday afternoon.
The girls’s race ended with victory for Cambridge in a tough fought race alongside the unusually straight course on the River Great Ouse.
Cambridge claimed their third successive win – and fourth in the final 5 occasions – in the lads’s Boat Race.
Sarah Winckless, the first feminine to umpire the lads’s race in the occasion’s 166-year historical past, was stored busy as on a number of events she warned Cambridge cox Charlie Marcus to change his crew’s line.
The Cambridge crew celebrates by throwing their cox into the river after successful the 166th Men’s Boat Race. Credit: PA
It was a daring method from Cambridge however they hit the entrance early on and stayed out in entrance of Oxford, who stored the drawback to lower than a size with out with the ability to reel in their rivals.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, spectators had been banned and other people had been warned they might face a superb of £200 in the event that they tried to look at the occasion.
The boat race this 12 months was moved away from London and to the Great Ouse in Ely, Cambridgeshire for the first time since the Second World War.
The change of location was attributable to issues over the security of Hammersmith Bridge which has been closed since April final 12 months.
“Frustrated” rowers, carrying exhausting hats and high-vis jackets, staged a protest on the River Thames concerning the lack of motion in the direction of repairing the bridge.
The 134-year-old west London bridge was first closed to street site visitors when cracks appeared in its pedestals.
Rowers staged a protest calling for motion to be taken to restore Hammersmith Bridge. Credit: Handout
But when a heatwave brought on the faults to worsen, it was closed to pedestrian, bicycle owner and river site visitors.
To coincide with the University Boat Race, 12 boats of rowers set off from the standard begin of the race in Putney to the bridge to protest obvious inaction over reopening the bridge.
Mark Lucani, captain of the 165-year-old London Rowing Club, stated: “Essentially, it was a mark of our frustration round that, coinciding with the Oxford and Cambridge race which is going on in the present day however not on the championship course.
“We had the message of ‘let’s get the work finished on the bridge, cease politicking and take motion’.
“The bridge has been shut for nearly a 12 months now and no bodily work has begun but.”
He added: “Every person of the river has felt the unfavorable influence.”
Jess Eddie, three-time British Olympic rower and medallist in the Rio Olympics, stated: “The influence of the damaged bridge on British rowing, different water sports activities and river customers has been big, confining a whole bunch of boats to a small part of the river.
“A closed Hammersmith Bridge will cease a lot of essential river occasions and races that individuals practice for year-round, a few of which have been going down for over 100 years.”
Julia Watkins, 52, a spokesperson for marketing campaign group Hammersmith Bridge SOS, stated the shortage of motion in the direction of fixing the bridge left her feeling “completely despairing”.
She stated: “Not solely is a historic a part of our nation’s historical past simply misplaced because the Boat Race appears unlikely to occur at Hammersmith for years to return, there are literally thousands of atypical people who find themselves actually struggling because of the Government’s inaction to repair a bridge.”
