How the Boat Race turned toxic

Telegraph

13-04-2025

There is a trailer for a documentary about this year's Boat Race that ends with Oxford women's president declaring: 'I will sell my soul to the devil to win this race.'
If the makers of Turning The Tide were looking to cast a pantomime villain for the programme's second season, then a laughing Annie Anezakis's talk of Faustian pacts may well have clinched her the role.
But despite glamorising how far those involved in the showdown on the Thames are prepared to go in pursuit of victory, this 'all-access docu-series' has revealed nothing of this year's unprecedented public row between Britain's two oldest universities – one that has left relations between their boat clubs at an all-time low.
Neither has there been any mention of the six Cambridge students caught in the middle of it all – including Anezakis's opposite number – whose dreams of being part of a winning Boat Race crew have been crushed amid allegations of 'slimy' manoeuvrings by their arch-rivals.
Nor has the programme explained how behind it all lies an arms race to recruit elite-level 'ringers' to take part in one of the world's longest-running amateur sporting competitions.
How much Anezakis knew about this ongoing uncivil war when she made her own provocative remarks is unclear but it is others, rather than her, who stand accused of triggering a spat that has become more toxic than the sewage-ridden river on which the near 200-year-old Boat Race now takes place.
Until this year, both Oxford University Boat Club (OUBC) and their Cambridge University counterparts (CUBC) had managed to keep a lid on age-old tensions over their recruitment of Olympic rowers to take part in the race.
Suspicion runs deep between institutions whose cheerleaders respectively insult each other with the slurs 'Shoe the Tabs' (derived from 'Cantabrigian') and 'GDBO' (God Damn Bloody Oxford). It even extends to unfounded rumours that active or retired Olympians may have historically been offered places on courses for which they were not academically qualified, and paranoia that brown envelopes stuffed with cash may have been used in a bid to lure them to study.
The two boat clubs eventually decided to do something about all this – though not to prevent them selecting Olympic rowers altogether, nor to combat any suspected skulduggery. Instead came a crackdown on the over-30s following the victory in the 2019 race by James Cracknell, who, at 46, became the oldest rower to enter by a decade after enrolling at Cambridge.
There was little mention at the time that a man who retired from competitive rowing 13 years earlier – albeit as a two-time Olympic champion – might be considered a 'ringer'. But, after the coronavirus crisis saw the 2020 race cancelled, both universities gave their blessing to a change to the so-called Joint Agreement between them that governs the event, with the aim of preventing anyone taking part more than 12 years after they first began an undergraduate degree.
A rule change, which Telegraph Sport has been told was proposed by a lawyer for Cambridge, went unnoticed by the wider public until last month and was seemingly not fully enforced, with both this year's and last year's CUBC women's presidents – Lucy Havard and Jenna Armstrong – being allowed to race in 2024 despite breaching it.
All that changed following the first post-Olympic year since the rule change came into effect which, as Havard says in the first episode of Turning The Tide, meant 'Olympians!'
Both universities recruited heavily from the stars of Paris 2024, most notably Tom Mackintosh, New Zealand's Tokyo 2020 men's eight champion, and Tom Ford, who stroked Britain to gold in the same event last summer.
Each rower is said to have been offered places at both Oxford and Cambridge, with Mackintosh opting for the former – becoming OUBC men's president in the process – and Ford the latter.
However, multiple sources have told Telegraph Sport that Ford was warned by Oxford that he would not be able to row in the Boat Race because, unlike Mackintosh, he breached the so-called '12-year rule'.
What Cambridge told Ford about his eligibility depends on who you ask but one source said Oxford became convinced their rivals were planning to put him in their crew. Indeed, as recently as March 2, the 32-year-old stroked Cambridge's 'provisional Blue Boat' (their Boat Race crew) to victory against Olympic silver medallists the Netherlands in two 'preparation' races for this weekend's event.
It also depends who you ask whether it was Oxford's fears about Ford – compounded by five defeats in the last six men's Boat Races and seven in a row in the women's (hence the title of Turning The Tide) – that drove what happened next.
But what is not in dispute is that OUBC were successful in getting three trainee teachers in the Cambridge squad banned from racing, including Matt Heywood, a former under-23 world champion and an LA 2028 Team GB hopeful. They did so after challenging a long-standing tradition that had seen those studying for a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE) compete for both universities.
A ruling in December by an interpretation panel that governs disputes over the Joint Agreement found against a trio who have become known as the 'PGCE three' amid what is said to have been a pedantic debate about whether Cambridge University's own statutes classed such a diploma as being of sufficient status to meet Boat Race rules.
Multiple sources have also said that CUBC appealed and submitted fresh evidence showing that a PGCE was deemed to be of sufficient status, causing the panel to reverse its decision the following month.
However, Oxford are then said to have challenged this outcome on the basis that the interpretation panel's decisions are 'binding, final and unappealable' under the Joint Agreement, forcing the panel to revert to its original – seemingly flawed – ruling.
'Desperate ploy to gain upper hand in most slimy way'
It was perhaps this burning sense of perceived injustice that prompted Annamarie Phelps, the chair of CUBC, vice-chair of the British Olympic Association and a former Olympic rower, to make the whole affair public less than four weeks before the race.
Phelps said in a statement that she was 'deeply disappointed' at the outcome, adding: 'This decision comes despite the university's advice on the PGCE's standing and despite the precedent set by PGCE students from both Oxford and Cambridge being allowed to race in preceding years.'
The names of the 'PGCE three' emerged after Heywood took to Instagram to accuse Oxford OUBC of being behind their exclusion.
Identifying Molly Foxell and Kate Crowley as the other affected athletes, he wrote: 'It's safe to say that this decision doesn't align with any values of sportsmanship or race spirit that I have known in rowing, and that I feel disheartened by the wider implications of this decision on my future vocation.'
Crowley also posted: 'It is absolutely gutting to have the race that you've dreamed of doing for years taken away from you, without getting any say in the matter. I haven't come to terms with it yet, and I'm not sure that I will.'
But the most scathing reaction came from reigning Olympic lightweight double sculls champion Imogen Grant, who helped Cambridge win the women's Boat Race in 2017, 2018 and 2022.
Grant posted: 'I'm seething. This is an insult to teachers everywhere and a desperate ploy from Oxford to gain an upper hand in the most slimy way. I don't believe this reflects on the current Oxford squad, who have also had to train among this uncertainty all year. I believe this is entirely down to select individuals amongst the alumni who have a narrow, outdated view of who rows boat races.'
Former CUBC chair and 2004 Olympic silver medallist Cath Bishop also wrote: 'Utter madness in the Boat Race world… and a new low in relations between Oxford and Cambridge boat clubs. A crying shame for any student who has trained their heart out to be a pawn in the petty disputes that the clubs consistently fight in order to get one up on each other.'
Professor Sir John Bell, an immunologist involved in the development of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine and a senior member of the OUBC executive committee, hit back, saying: 'A PGCE is not a degree course, it is a diploma and that is not a degree. We didn't take the decision, the decision was made by the arbitration panel. The students were warned a long time ago they would be unlikely to be able to row and they thought they would just plough on. There is a very clear process.'
Race organiser the Boat Race Company – the chair of which, Siobhan Cassidy, rowed in the contest in 1995 while studying for a PGCE – said it sympathised with any athlete disappointed over crew selection. But it added: 'We hope that any decision of the interpretation panel is respected and accepted, and not debated publicly, particularly since the IP's remit was agreed by the clubs. The panel is made up of a chair, two representatives from both clubs and two academics.'
The row escalated the following day when Bishop accused Bell of being the driving force behind manoeuvrings by OUBC dating back to her days as CUBC chair a decade earlier. Bell, whose role in the boat club came to prominence three years ago when he led its public response to a rape complaint by a female Oxford rower, denied this, telling The Times: 'It was with the whole club's support. I don't look at every student. I'm in support of agreed eligibility criteria that everyone sticks to.'
The same day, Telegraph Sport revealed that Ford had been blocked from racing due to the 12-year rule and that Havard and Armstrong were facing the same fate. Sources also disclosed that CUBC had secured a legal opinion from a KC in October that the rule was unlawful. But, after months of wrangling over the matter, it decided it was too late to escalate proceedings in time for this year's race. Confirming Ford was not permitted to race, the Boat Race Company said: 'It is of course unfortunate that he is not eligible to race according to the rules jointly agreed by the two clubs, but this was known to both Tom and CUBC at the time of his admission to the university last summer.'
A day after that, Cracknell wrote a column for Telegraph Sport in which he said: 'It is a real travesty that the race has become governed by rules that restrict some of the best athletes from participating. It is also wrong on every level that three trainee teachers have been blocked from taking part.'
Cracknell revealed as well that, in 2019, Cambridge had 'an age-discrimination lawyer ready' in case Oxford sought to challenge his participation that year.
Ford has said nothing of his own omission, focusing instead on helping those on the Cambridge crew prepare for Sunday's contest. Havard broke her own silence at the announcement of both boat clubs' crews two weeks ago, saying: 'It's definitely been difficult, I'm not going to lie about it. There's been a lot of frustration but ultimately everyone has just got on with it and focused on training. Molly, Kate and Matt are very much part of our squad and we're doing our absolute best to support them.
'We're also looking forward to having a proper discussion with Oxford and the interpretation panel and just making sure this doesn't happen again next year.'
Whether it can all be resolved amicably remains to be seen, with one of the 'PGCE three' said to have also secured a KC-led report by four Blackstone Chambers barristers on the IP's ruling over their omission which states 'there are strong grounds to challenge the lawfulness of the decisions'.
With Sunday's race looming, the public slanging match over this year's contest has given way to a barely-concealed bitterness, those of a Cambridge persuasion privately saying they believe an Oxford victory in the men's or women's contests would be a hollow one.