The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing competition between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The race takes place on the 4.2-mile Championship Course, between Putney and Mortlake on the River Thames in south-west London. For the third time in the history of the event, the men’s, women’s and both reserves’ races were all held on the Tideway on the same day. The men’s race was the final event of the day and completed a whitewash as Cambridge won, their second victory in three years.
About The Boat Race 2018 in brief
The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing competition between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The race takes place on the 4. 2-mile Championship Course, between Putney and Mortlake on the River Thames in south-west London. For the third time in the history of the event, the men’s, women’s and both reserves’ races were all held on the Tideway on the same day. The men’s race was the final event of the day and completed a whitewash as Cambridge won, their second victory in three years, and taking the overall record to 83–80 in their favour. The races were watched by around a quarter of a million spectators live, and were broadcast around the world by a variety of broadcasters. The two main races were also available for the second time as a live stream using YouTube. There is no monetary award for winning the race, as the journalist Roger Alton notes: “It’s the last great amateur event: seven months of pain for no prize money”. The rivalry is a major point of honour between the two universities; it is followed throughout the United Kingdom and broadcast worldwide. Oxford went into the race as champions, having won the 2017 race by a margin of one and a quarter lengths, with Cambridge leading overall with 82 victories to Oxford’s 80. The women’s race, which first took place in 1927, was usually held at the Henley Boat Races along the 2,000-metre course.
However, on at least two occasions in the interwar period, the women competed on the Thames between Chiswick and Kew. The event was broadcast live in the UK on the BBC’s SuperSport and on BBC Online for the first time in 2001. It was also streamed live on BBC SuperSport online for a second time, including the men and women’s women’s races on BBC iPlayer and BBC Online. The final race was held on 24 March 2018, and was umpired by the former Light Blue rower John Garrett, who represented Great Britain at the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Summer Olympics. Oxford’s men’s reserve race was presided over by Matt Smith, who rowed for Oxford in the 2002 and 2003 races, and oversaw the men’s reserve race in 1994 and 1995. The 73rd women’s event was the first to be broadcast on BBC2, with the women’s being shown on BBC1 on the weekend of 26 March and BBC2 on Sunday 27 March. The last race was on Sunday 28 March, and it was broadcast by BBC2 and BBC3 on the Sunday morning of Monday 28 March. Cambridge’s women won the race by 11 lengths, and led 42–30 overall, and won the Women’s Boat Race by nine lengths, their third consecutive victory in the event. Cambridge won the men’t reserve race by four lengths, defeating Oxford’s Osiris by nine lengths, and took the overall women’s record to 43–30 in their favor.
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This page is based on the article The Boat Race 2018 published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
