Oxford men win the Boat Race for the first time in FIVE years

It is an amateur sporting occasion still worth the ink, and when it was over after 4.2 miles of heart-sapping endeavour, the hollering Oxford crew splashed the water in delight.

The Cambridge boys sat there disconsolate, quiet, introspective.

Nothing told you more about the Boat Race than these contrasting images. It may just be something more gutting to lose than enjoyable to win. Usually in rowing, there are medals for the nearly men, silvers and bronzes as compensatory metal. But here it is binary. You win or lose, and your fate goes down in family folklore.

For the Oxford strokeman, Tobias Schroder, tears of joy. After a brace of defeats, vindication. His was a two-and-a-half-length victory and a straightforward one at that. ‘It’s been a long time and a lot of hurt,’ said Schroder.

Oxford’s Tobias Schroder, Jack Tottem and team-mates celebrate after winning the Boat Race

For British Olympian Ollie Wynne-Griffith, rowing at seven for Cambridge, no welcome sequel to a family contribution to mostly Light Blue victories made by his grandfather and great-grandfather. Aged 27, Wynne-Griffith, an MBA student, now looks to the Olympics in Paris two years hence.

He seeks a better ending than the bronze he won as British rowing self-harmed at the Tokyo Games of last year, following the untimely departure of legendary coach Jurgen Grobler.

Tom George, Wynne-Griffith’s fellow member of the third-placed eight in Japan and a former schoolmate at Radley, sat a seat behind and even his huge firepower could not save the Cantabrigians in the 167th edition. He, like his mate, is on a one-year course at Peterhouse and probably won’t pass this way again. 

‘It’s a hammer blow,’ said Wynne-Griffith, wearing his disappointment with a giant magnanimity that did his near 6ft 6in-plus huge credit.

Oxford’s Angus Groom (second right) punches the air in delight following victory on Sunday

It is the first time the Oxford men’s team have won the race since 2017 as they celebrate

For the record, Oxford ended a three-race losing streak in 16min 42sec after their lighter adversaries surprisingly chose the Middlesex station. However, the Cambridge women, with the help of some aggressive coxing by Jasper Parish, extended their winning run to five in a record 18min 23sec.

But there was more to the day than updating the tally. There was an outpouring of post-Covid freedom, with an estimated 250,000 spectators on the banks, almost entirely mask-less. It mattered only peripherally that the earlier sun went behind a cloud and a light but cold wind blew.

Olympic gold medallist Sir Matthew Pinsent was umpire for the women’s race

Here was a defiant bugle call for tradition and elitism by an event that need not exist on the BBC, as it does, when most sports have fallen off the terrestrial aerial.

With Lord’s having dropped the Oxford-Cambridge and Eton-Harrow cricket matches — hiss, and down with egalitarianism! — this felt like a welcome preservation of Victoriana, almost.

Almost? Well, the Boat Race predates the reign of the only Queen-Empress, back to 1829.

With its return to the Thames after a two-year hiatus, it is worth remembering the river was here before England herself. As Churchill said, it is a ‘golden thread’, and, be you victor or vanquished, the pageant itself felt worth celebrating.

But Cambridge maintained a dominant streak in the women’s race with a fifth straight win

Cambridge women’s cox Jasper Parish managed to steer the boat to victory as he celebrates

Despite the chilly conditions, spectators gathered to watch the action on the River Thames