On the Thames, Anything Can Happen

By Martin Cross

On the last day of January, the putative Oxford men’s Blue boat was barreling down the Thames championship course at full pelt. They were matched against an eight from London Rowing Club. The waters off The Boat Race start at Putney had been full of all sorts of boats, forced off the non-tidal stretches of the Thames because of the impossibly fast stream conditions (the UK and rain…).

Right on the corner of the Fulham bend, the London crew—at that point nearly a length down on Oxford—had to hold their boat up hard as they threatened to ram a flotilla of sailing boats. Collision was averted, the race restarted, and both London and Oxford went on to share the honors in a well-matched encounter.

Anything can happen in The Boat Race, and this was a reminder of that.

Yes, The Boat Race fixture season is upon us—that time of year when the Oxbridge squads take on the finest domestic and international opposition on the famous championship course.

The next day, the Tideway was again packed, as Oxford’s women dominated their fixture against London Rowing Club. But the most interesting contest on the first of February was the four races between eight–yes, eight–Oxford Brookes eights. The university club that has frankly dominated student rowing in the UK was back!

Last year was an unhappy one for the Brookes Boat Club. Controversies and bad publicity over the methodology of its coaches had forced the club to withdraw from the 2025 fixture season, when the Brookes rowers were supposed to pit themselves against the Blue boats. The run of bad luck continued at Henley, where the club failed to win a trophy for the first time in a long while.

But 2026 has seen a rejuvenated Brookes return to the tidal Thames with new men’s and women’s chief coaches ready to take on the Blue boats.

Ali Brown, a fresh-faced, incredibly enthusiastic coach, stepped out of the prestigious Leander Club setup to take on what he called “a dream job.” Despite last year’s controversy, Brown has no shortage of athletes. He has entered nine Brookes crews for the Head of the River Race on the 28th of March.

But before then, Brown is salivating over the prospect of racing both Oxford and Cambridge Blue boats, the former on the seventh of March and the latter just a couple of weeks earlier on the 21st of February.

Traditionally, the Brookes stable of athletes includes rowers who have graduated but still compete for their alma mater. Brown has made the brave decision, however, to race against the Blue boats with just undergraduates. The Brookes match racing on the first of February was, in Brown’s words, “to give the new lads a first look at the championship course.”

The Brookes fixtures will be anticipated eagerly, as will the matchup between the men and women of Cambridge and the Dutch national squad. Of course, the two eights from The Netherlands blew away competition from the rest of the world to take two golds at the Shanghai World Rowing Championships last year. Earlier in the season, The Netherlands men’s eight were run close by an exceptional Light Blue crew in the Grand at Henley.

But the two eights that will wear orange for the fixtures on the eighth of March will be athletes from the Dutch development squad. The seniors will have spent several weeks up at altitude and will have come down only on the fifth of March. That’s deemed too soon for them to race Cambridge on the Thames.

Meanwhile, the rumor mill has been working overtime on the likely relative speeds of both men’s and women’s Boat Race crews. Cambridge’s reserve boat was said to have beaten the men of Thames Rowing Club on the Tideway. Given that Thames and London are a similar speed, and factoring in the result of London vs. Oxford, that means that Cambridge’s first boat (at this stage) is faster than Oxford’s best crew.

The Cambridge women shared the honors against a very strong Thames R.C. eight, though apparently they were bettered by a Leander crew that came up to the Light Blues Ely course, in the east of the UK, as the speed of the river at Leander’s Henley base is too fast.

What does all this mean? Well, the Cambridge men remain strong favorites, and the Dark Blue women still have the favorites tag. But the Cambridge women are closing the gap.

Moreover, the Light Blues have a significant performance advantage in that they can continue to row on their Ely stretch of water, which is unaffected by the stream and floods. Oxford, however, can’t row out of their Thames-based boathouse until the rain stops and the waters on the Wallingford stretch subside. So the Dark Blues have to find water elsewhere. That means significant traveling time and, frankly, a bit of a logistic nightmare.

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