Turning the Tide

By Martin Cross

For the rowing teams of Oxford University, this year will be momentous.

The dark blue oarswomen have lost every Boat Race since 2016. The Oxford men have lost six of the last seven contests. In recent years, Oxford has been hit by a light blue tsunami.

That’s why Ben Tufnell’s excellent documentary series about the 2024 and ’25 campaigns was titled Turning the Tide (https://www.youtube.com/theboatrace). Could Oxford do what Canute the Great, the 11th-century English king, failed to do and reverse the Cambridge tide?

Chances are that if an Oxford squad does turn things around on the Thames on April 4, it will be the women. They posted an impressive third place in October at the Head of the Charles, beating Cambridge by over 20 seconds. But did Oxford have what it takes to keep up that momentum though the winter?

For the dark blue women, led by coach Alan French, a crucial step in that process came just before Christmas. Both Oxford and Cambridge’s squads raced supposedly matched eights over the 4.25-mile championship course in what would probably be their only chance to race over the full distance.

These races are called Trial VIIIs (“trial eights”), and in the Boat Race, they are a big deal. But before French could assess his dark blue’s performance, both he and they had to watch Cambridge race its Trial VIIIs on Dec.18, the day before Oxford got its turn.

For light blue Camille VanderMeer, Trial VIIIs offered an opportunity for her to experience the Boat Race course for the first time, and the 2025 world fours champion from Elmira, N.Y., seized the chance with both hands. Rowing in six-seat, she anchored her crew to an impressive five-length win over her fellow squad members.

Keeping VanderMeer company in the boat were two other North Americans. Sitting right behind the former Princeton Tiger was Toronto-born Alex Wiley, who was also part of the Penn squad. Former Cal oarswoman Izzy Campbell of Brooklyn, N.Y., added her power to the crew from the two-seat. In all, of the 18 women named in the Cambridge women’s Trial VIIIs boats, seven had North American connections.

The Cambridge men’s crew has even more U.S. connections. Eleven of 18 light blue rowers were either born in North America or rowed at a university there. With their outright victory in championship eights on the Charles back in October, the light blue men made themselves strong favorites to register a fourth-straight Boat Race victory. On Dec.18, in pouring rain, Cambridge’s strength was underlined by the narrow margin between the two well-matched boats over the whole course.

The winning light blue boat contained the Crimson powerhouse Gabe Obholzer and Aussie Alex Mclean, who rowed in the U.S. for the Yale Bulldogs. The crew also contained two native-born North Americans, Kyle Fram of Lawrenceville, N.J., and Raphael Berz of Canada, who rowed on the Yale lightweight squad. Although he wasn’t involved in the trials, German Olympian Frederik Breuer also has a U.S. connection; he won the 2023 IRAs with the University of California, Berkeley.

The Cambridge men’s 2026 squad is so strong that its president, Noam Mouelle, who has three straight Boat Race triumphs on his Palmarès, might not even make this year’s boat.

So how could Oxford, whose trials were the day after Cambridge’s on Dec.19, give the dark blue university hope that the tide might turn in 2026?

The dark blue women largely delivered. I say “largely” because the gap between the two crews when they crossed the finish line by Chiswick Bridge was big—five and a half lengths. But at least the two eights had some close side-by-side racing early on and a dramatic race-stopping crab directly opposite this correspondent.

Notably, Oxford’s top oarswoman and president, Heidi Long, wasn’t in the least fazed; she stroked her boat to an impressive victory. Long had only one American in her crew, Californian Julietta Camahort, but the dark blue squad has U.S. influence running right through it.

Long herself was a University of Virginia Cavalier. The other big-name oarswoman recruited by the dark blues is the Spanish Olympian Esther Briz Zamorano, who studied at Stanford. Two women who will be key to Oxford’s winning will be the Aussie Annie Anezakis and the Brit Kyra Delray. Both rowed at Princeton and UCLA. It’s possible that lightweight Emily Molins of Wilmette, Ill., could force her way into the boat, too.

Collectively, these women face a massive task—regaining Oxford’s honor. They have the belief, talent, and coaching to deliver, but they’ll need to step up from what we saw at Trial VIIIs to be sure of victory.

The Oxford men’s squad took the most they could from the day, which, coach Mark Fangen-Hall said, was to give “a lot of the guys who are actually new to the sport Tideway experience.”

Illness impacted Fangen-Hall’s selections, so the two crews were not evenly matched. After seven minutes, stroke Harry Geffen, a Yale graduate, dropped the leading crew’s rate to 26 so the other boat—rowing at over 30—could catch up and the coxes could get experience racing side by side.

If the dark blue men are to produce a competitive eight in April, much will rest on the board shoulders of Geffen, a British athlete who has won no fewer than four U23 gold medals.

Both Oxford and Cambridge have spent the New Year in warmer climes than the UK. The men’s crews trained in Portugal at separate locations. The Oxford women trained in Spain, while the light blue women trained on the lagoon in Sabaudia, Italy.

Head-to-head racing on the Tideway began in earnest in January and continues through March. Crew selection will be over by mid-March. If the tide is going to turn, that’s when we’ll see proof.

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