The Boat Race is an annual rowing race between the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, rowed between competing eights on the River Thames in London, England. It is also known as the University Boat Race and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, from 2010–2012 for sponsorship reasons as the Xchanging Boat Race, and from 2013 as the BNY Mellon Boat Race. It usually takes place on the last Saturday of March or the first Saturday of April.
The first race was in 1829 and the event has been held annually since 1856, except during World War I and World War II. The course covers a 4.2 mile (6.8 km) stretch of the Thames in West London, from Putney to Mortlake. Members of both teams are traditionally known as blues and each boat as a "Blue Boat", with Cambridge in light blue and Oxford dark blue. As of 2012 Cambridge have won the race 81 times and Oxford 76 times, with one dead heat.
The race is a well-established and popular fixture in the British sporting calendar. In 2010 an estimated quarter of a million people watched the race live from the banks of the river and millions on television.
Read more about The Boat Race: Course, Media Coverage, Competitors, Sponsorship, Other Boat Races Involving Oxford and Cambridge, Build-up, Popular Culture, Results and Statistics
Famous quotes containing the words boat and/or race:
“When a horse comes to the edge of the cliff, it is too late to draw rein; when a boat reaches midstream, it is too late to stop the leaks.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous,
Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water,
Is earth’s most multiple, excited daughter;
And those she has least use for see her best,
Their paths grown craven and circuitous,
Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)