The Boat Race 2003

The Boat Race 2003

The 149th Boat Race took place on 6 April 2003. Oxford won by one foot, the smallest margin of victory in the history of the event. This was the first Boat Race to feature two sets of brothers on opposing sides. In the reserve race Goldie beat Isis and Oxford won the Women’s race.

About The Boat Race 2003 in brief

Summary The Boat Race 2003The 149th Boat Race took place on 6 April 2003. Oxford won by one foot, the smallest margin of victory in the history of the event. The lead changed twice during the race, with Cambridge leading twice. This was the first Boat Race to feature two sets of brothers on opposing sides. In the reserve race Goldie beat Isis and Oxford won the Women’s race. The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing competition between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It takes place on the 4. 2-mile Championship Course, between Putney and Mortlake on the River Thames in south-west London. Up until 2014, the contest was conducted as part of the Henley Boat Races, but as of the 2015 race, it is held on the same day as the men’s main and reserve races. The race was sponsored by Aberdeen Asset Management for the fourth consecutive year, and the first to be scheduled on a Sunday, in order to avoid a clash with the live television broadcast of the Grand National. The contest is a major point of honour between the two universities; it is followed throughout the United Kingdom and broadcast worldwide.

Oxford went into the 2003 race as reigning champions, having won the previous year’s race by three-quarters of a length, but Cambridge led overall with 77 victories to Oxford’s 70. The reserve race, contested between Oxford’s Isis boat and Cambridge’s Goldie boat, has been held since 1965. The official weigh-in took place at the Eye Eye in London on 1 April. The Cambridge crew had an advantage of 7 kilograms per member, representing the largest disparity between the Dark Blue and Dark Blue crews since the 1975 event. Oxford’s crew averaged 21, while Cambridge had an average age of 23, while the Oxford crew featured seven Britons, an Australian and a Canadian, while a Canadian and a German were also on the crew. The first Women’s Boat Race was held in 1927, but did not become an annual fixture until the 1960s. It was held at Henley until the 1980s, when it was moved to the Thames.