The rowing battle between Oxford and Cambridge

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Britain is famous with culture, music, literature and many other things. She is also famous in sports and is a big name there. Many big athletes and much different kind of sports came from there. In Britain, there are big traditions in football, tennis, athletics, snooker and many other sports. Rowing is also included in the list of traditional sports for Britain. That is a very popular sport and with big traditions. Rowing is also an Olympic sport. It is practiced and developed in many countries. When you hear the word �rowing�, you are thinking about boats and oars. But when a rower hears that word, he is thinking about pace, power, pressure, strength and time. These are one of the most important things in rowing from the side of the rower or, if we could say, the �engine� of the boat. The other important things, from the material side, are the boats and the oars. The boats and the oars must be very light and with good dynamic. In rowing there are different kinds of disciplines and so there are different kinds of boats and oars. Rowing is divided mainly into two kinds � sculling and sweep-oar rowing. In sculling the rowers are using two oars, one on each side of the boat. In sweep-oar rowing they are using only one oar, bigger than the sculling oar, but there must be a minimum of two people in the boat, in order to float. The types of boats in sweep-oar rowing are - straight pair (2- ), coxed pair (2+), straight four (4- ), coxed four (4+), eight (8+). The coxed boats are always with a guy who is responsible only for the steering of the boat. The sculling boat types are - single (1x), double (2x), quad (4x), octuple (8x). In every boat for each rower there is a sliding seat. It has four small wheels, and a sliding part. That seat, called �slide� is moving in the boat, in special channels. The boat, the oars and the slide are the most important things for modern rowing. For those that never rowed in a racing boat and don�t know what is this sport about I can describe it like that. Rowing is the sport where the body says �stop�, but the mind is refusing to stop. The psychic of the person plays a big role in here. This is a sport for strong will and sport spite.









According to the internet site http://wikipedia.org , the history of modern rowing begins in the second half of 18th century, with a boat race on the River Thames in England. Oxford and Cambridge are to very familiar names. These are the names of two of the biggest and famous universities in Britain. They have many traditions and one of them is connected with rowing. One of the biggest rowing traditions in Britain and maybe in the world is the boat race between Oxford and Cambridge. It has over 150 years of history. There are 152 boat races, between the crews of these universities.

According to the official web site of the boat race (http://www.theboatrace.org) the firs race between Oxford and Cambridge was in the summer of 1829. The winner of that race was Oxford with a time 14 min. 03 sec. The idea for the boat race came from two school friends. The one is Charles Merivale, who was a student at Cambridge and the other is Charles Wordsworth . Cambridge challenged Oxford and it all began. Every year, with little exceptions, the losing team from the last race is challenging the other to a new race. That is repeating from many years and now it became a very big tradition in Britain and one of the famous sport events in the world.The boat race is watched from over a half billion people and is the amateur sport event with the most viewers in the world. The race includes only rowers who are students in Cambridge or in Oxford. They start to prepare half year before the race and are training 6 days in the week. Some names from the two universities turn to professional rowing and became a big names in that sport. Some of theme are names like Matthew Pinsent who is a four time Olympic gold medalist and rowed for Oxford in the period 1990-1993, and the gold medalists from the Olympic Games in 2000 Tim Foster, who rowed for Oxford in 1997, Luka Grubor, and Kieran West, rowed for Cambridge in the period 1999-2006.The Cambridge rowing club is called CUBC (Cambridge University Boat Club) and the Oxford rowing club is called OUBC (). The boat race between the rowing crews traditionally is on a sweep-oar coxed eight. The course of the race is the same every year but there are a few exceptions and changes in the past years. The firs boat race between the universities was at Henley-on-Thames. In the period 1939-1842 the course was from Westminster to Putney and in the period 1846-1863 form Mortlake to Putney. Since then the official course is from Putney to Motlake. The course is 6779 meters long and the first crew crossing the finish line is the winner. The preparing for the boat race begins in September. That is the period when the winter training is starting. Everyone is trying to make a good impression and to give a good result. They are hoping that the good performance and hard work will include them in the crew for the race. There is a big inside competition in the two crews for the titular places. But some of the students are dropping from the team because they don�t have the time to train and have to do a lot of studies. The rowers are tested in December. A team from one university is divided in two eights and there is a race between them, called �Trial Eights�. This gives a chance to the coaches to see and prepare the main crew; it gives chance to the new ones to prove them selves and to take experience. When the titular crew is done it is tested against the fastest clubs in the area. Both crews OUBC and CUBC have a reserve team. In the race day the first competition is between the reserve teams.The boat races have a big history and interesting moments. In 1849 Oxford won the race with the help of a foul done by Cambridge and that was the second win for Oxford. In 1859 Cambridge sank and couldn�t finish the race. In 1873 was the first race in which the crews used sliding seats. In that race Cambridge broke the course record of 20 minutes. In 1912 the both crews sank. The race was moved to another date. In the period 1915-1919 there were no boat races. The reason was the First World War. There is a lot of sinking in this race. Boats from the crews sank in 1859 (Cambridge), 1912 (both crews sank), 1925 (Oxford), 1978 (Cambridge).The boat race is always tight and intensive. The first winner of the race is Oxford and this year the race was won also by Oxford. The wins for Oxford are 73 and the wins for Cambridge are 78. That is close, but Oxford still has what to give.For 152 boat races a big number of people were involved in the both crews and fought for there places in the top eights. There is an interesting statistic published in the boat race web site (http://www.theboatrace.org). According to that statistic the heaviest rower was Christopher Heathcote with 110.22 kg a part from the 1990 Oxford crew. The lightest rower was Alfred Higgins with 60.1 kg. from the 1882 Oxford crew. The crew with the most weight ever was the 2005 Oxford crew with average weight of 98.35 kg. per rower. The coxes with the lightest weight were Francis Archer from Cambridge 1862, and Hart Massey from Oxford 1939. Their weight was 32.66 kg. Now there is a restriction for the coxes weight, which is 55 kg. The youngest rower was Matthew Brittin, who was 18 years old and was a part from Cambridge crew in 1987. The oldest rower was Donald Macdonald at the age of 31, competing for Oxford in 1987. 2 m. and 7 cm. was the height of the tallest rower in the boat race - Josh West competing for Cambridge in the years from 1999 to 2002. The crew with the most height ever was Cambridge in 1999. The closes win in the history of the battle between Oxford and Cambridge is in 2003 when Oxford won by just one foot. The course record was set by Cambridge in when in 1998 they won with a time of 16 min. 19 sec. The first woman to compete in the boat race was Sue Brown. She was an Oxford cox in 1981. 1989 was the first year in which the two crews were driven by women. The racing boats are also a very important part. The racing eights are 19.9 m. long and weight 96 kg. According to the statistics, for every stroke in the race, each of the rowers is training 2 hours and there are about 600 strokes in the race.The idea for the boat race was very good. That boat race is a symbol of the British sport and university spirit. And like the two friends that gave the idea, the Oxford and Cambridge crews are competing fair and they show respect to each other like a real friends. Oxford and Cambridge are two universities with a big notability. They are famous all over the world. There are and other big and famous universities. But you will not find such spirit and traditions like the boat race tradition from Oxford and Cambridge. For me that tradition is enough reason to enter in one of these universities. The students are working very hard just to get into the boat race team. The desire is very big and they are doing everything to be noticed by the coaches.There are many supporters of the tradition that started 177 years ago. The boat race is one of the most important events in Britain and in the sport world. One year hard work and training lead to just one day, but in that day it is going to be clear which is the best crew and who worked harder. The tradition is repeating every year and I don�t thing that there is a possibility that tradition to end. The desire to be the best, the desire to win, but to win honorable are eternal. The boat race is one of the things that we can be proud of and is one of the many grate things that Britain gave to the world.