Coach Rob Baker hailed the “best crew” of his Cambridge career after they overcame controversy and secured a dominant victory in the 170th men’s Boat Race.
It was a clean sweep for the light blues, who also secured wins in the women’s and reserve races, Baker’s men claiming the trophy for a third-straight year by a margin of five-and-a-half lengths.
Build-up was dominated by an eligibility row that resulted in 2024 British Olympic gold medallist Tom Ford and former under-23 world champion Matt Heywood ruled out of competing for Cambridge for separate reasons alongside two potential members of the women’s crew.
“It’s the best crew I’ve ever coached without question at Cambridge,” said Baker, who was appointed in 2018.
“Maybe that made me a bit more nervous because I knew what they were capable of doing.
“You want them to fulfil what they are capable of doing and I think we were a bit under the radar somehow. We have no Olympians – Oxford have three stars in the boat – so I couldn’t be more proud of them.
“The noise (has) just been motivation, frankly and we treated it pretty sensibly.
“There are two guys who could have been in the boat today and didn’t get that opportunity, so they’re rowing for them as well.”
The men’s race was due to begin at 14:21 but was delayed for just under 10 minutes to clear some floating debris.
It started out evenly before Cambridge began building up a steady lead, ultimately crossing the finish in a winning time of 16 minutes 56 seconds.
Cambridge six seat James Robson, a Team GB reserve athlete at last summer’s Paris Olympics, told the PA news agency: “I think there’s been a lot of external noise this entire year and I think one of the things that Rob has done so masterfully all year is just focus on the guys that we’ve got in the building.
“We heard everything, we listened to nothing and we just went out there and tried to perform our best on the day.”
Oxford sent out a crew comprised of several Olympians including men’s president Tom Mackintosh, who won gold with New Zealand’s eight at Tokyo 2020.
He said: “Unfortunately, it just didn’t go our way today, but I don’t feel like we’ve lost because I’m still proud of the work that all the Oxford men and women have done.
“That’s the beauty of an event like this and the beauty of sport. Some days it doesn’t go your way, but the race won’t define you and it won’t define Oxford.”
Cambridge cruised to an eighth-straight victory in the 79th edition of the women’s race, which began with some drama.
The crews clashed oars within the first two minutes and umpire Sir Matthew Pinsent elected to restart rather than disqualify who he deemed to be the Oxford instigators.
Cambridge ultimately took victory by a two-and-a-half-length margin in a winning time of 19mins 25secs.
Winning six seat Claire Collins – a two-time United States Olympian – revealed her crew had visualised a pre-race interruption, which allowed them to quickly regroup.
She said: “It feels amazing. It’s so fun. There is a huge team around the team, so it’s every person on and off the water that helped this happen.
“We are really proud, but it was also great competition from Oxford, we respect them a ton and are just glad we got some good racing in.”
