With almost 200 years of intense rivalry the Boat Race has already inspired several major films, and after an extraordinary week Hollywood producers now have plenty more material to go at.
What began last December as a disagreement between various alumni of Oxford and Cambridge over eligibility criteria for next month’s race exploded into a full-blown incident this week, with allegations of “slimy tactics,” academic snobbery and female rowers being viewed as collateral damage in a dispute between the male boat clubs.
The row was sparked by the decision of the independent panel that rule on eligibility, chaired by corporate finance lawyer Ian Hodgson, to block three Cambridge PGCE (postgraduate certificate in education) students – former men’s under-23 world champion Matthew Heywood, and women’s squad members Molly Foxell and Kate Crowley. In a written submission Oxford University Boat Club (OUBC) argued that the teacher training qualification “is a diploma and that is not a degree”, a view upheld by the panel.
Related: Cambridge’s Boat Race win a reward for ditching ruthless winning culture | Cath Bishop
In a separate development, Paris 2024 gold medallist Tom Ford has also been prevented from rowing for Cambridge on 13 April due to the so-called 12-year rule, which stops anyone competing if it was more than 12 years since they started an undergraduate degree course. The 12-year rule was added to the joint agreement between the two boat clubs that governs the race four years ago after the double Olympic champion James Cracknell rowed for Cambridge in 2019 at the age of 46.
The bad blood between the two camps is such that the former Olympic and world champion Annamarie Phelps, who is chair of Cambridge University Boat Club (CUBC), has seen her calls to OUBC go unanswered. Phelps described the situation as “deeply disappointing this week” and Imogen Grant, the reigning Olympic lightweight double sculls champion and a three-time Boat Race winner with Cambridge, accused Oxford of “slimy tactics”. Oxford could certainly do with a new strategy, as they have lost seven women’s races in succession, and five of the last six in the men’s race. No one associated with OUBC has yet commented officially on the matter.
The dispute is being taken so seriously that the vice-chancellors of both universities are now said to be considering intervening. There are also concerns at the Boat Race Company, who run the 196-year-old race, that the controversy could impact on their title sponsorship deal with Chanel.
The announcement that Chanel had agreed a headline commercial deal with the Boat Race last autumn was a genuinely historic move, as it is the French fashion house’s first sponsorship in sport. Next month’s race will be called the Chanel J12 Boat Race – a reference to the brand’s J12 unisex watch – in the start of a five-year deal which the company have the option to extend. Given that Chanel are a female-focused brand, the controversy is far from ideal.
“It looks like Oxford saw an opportunity and went for it, as they took the view that Matt Heywood was a strong rower, and they wanted to stop him competing,” said Cath Bishop, an Olympic rowing silver medallist and Cambridge graduate. “The impact on Cambridge’s women’s squad losing two members is collateral damage. If the PGCE ban stands it will affect women disproportionately, as more women are teachers.
“It is also an insult to all the alumni on both sides who have rowed while on PGCE courses, and a poor look for Oxford to be undermining an important degree-level qualification for the teaching profession that is so crucial to society.”
While the composition of both crews has often been contested, with mutual distrust on both sides and claims the other university was gaming the system by recruiting elite athletes to study easy degrees, there is a strong feeling in Cambridge that Oxford’s submission to the panel sprang from a determination to stop Heywood rowing. The 26-year-old, a member of the Great Britain crew that won silver in the quadruple sculls at the 2022 World Rowing Championships, was also offered a place at Oxford before opting to go to Cambridge, although dual applications are not unusual.
Heywood said this week that the decision to exclude him “doesn’t align with any values of sportsmanship or race spirit that I have known in rowing”.
Whatever Oxford’s motives this stormy week off the water will not be the end of the matter, with CUBC keeping all options open. The role of the independent panel in particular is being scrutinised, with sources at Cambridge claiming they appear to have change their minds about the issue on two occasions.
After Oxford’s objections were upheld in December, Prof Mark Winterbottom, deputy head of Cambridge’s faculty of education, wrote to them the following month confirming the validity of the PGCE qualification. His submission is understood to have included guidance from the website of the University of Oxford’s education faculty, which states that its PGCE is an “M level” or “level 7” qualification, a category that includes master’s degrees on the gov.uk website.
After receiving that evidence, the panel reversed their original decision and the three rowers were told they could race, but were informed last week that the decision had changed again. A source with knowledge of the case told the Guardian that the second U-turn resulted from Oxford successfully challenging the panel’s constitution, which they discovered does not include a right of appeal, meaning the original decision had to stand.
Cambridge are also understood to have received legal opinion from a king’s counsel that the 12-year rule is discriminatory. While they have opted not to challenge the joint agreement at this stage given the proximity of the race, that could change in the coming months.
