Starting gun is fired on 2025 Boat Race season as CUBC and OUBC renew rivalries at Presidents’ Challenge
“On behalf of Oxford University Boat Club, I hereby challenge Cambridge University Boat Club to an eight-oared race over The Championship Course on Sunday 13th April 2025.”
The 2025 Boat Race season began yesterday with the traditional Presidents’ Challenge ushering in another season of competition. Presidents representing the losing squads of the previous year’s races formally challenge those from the winning crews, marking the renewal of an intense competition which stretches back nearly two centuries.
Oxford Presidents Tom Mackintosh and Annie Anezakis laid down the challenge and Cambridge Presidents Luca Ferraro and Lucy Havard then formally accepted.
This year’s event, hosted by Olympic champion Constantine Louloudis MBE and held at the iconic Somerset House in London, saw Oxford and Cambridge come together in celebration of one of British sport’s most enduring rivalries.
The Umpires were confirmed as Sarah Winckless MBE (Women’s Blue Boat ’95-’97) and Sir Matthew Pinsent, for the Men’s and Women’s races respectively. Winckless becomes the first woman to umpire the Men’s Race on The Championship Course.
The Boat Race will take place on Sunday 13 April, with The 79th Women’s Boat Race to be followed shortly after by The 170th Men’s Boat Race. Two hundred thousand spectators are expected to line the banks of the River Thames to watch the event – which is free to attend and broadcast live on the BBC – while millions more are expected to watch globally.
First raced in 1829, The Boat Race is now one of the world’s oldest and most famous amateur sporting events, watched by millions across the globe. It takes place on the Thames in West London and stretches over 4.25 miles, over 3x the distance of an Olympic race. The Boat Race is made up of six races and in 2024, Cambridge won five.
The make-up of the Cambridge and Oxford squads will be more diverse than ever in 2025, with 157 student rowers spanning 18 different nationalities from countries such as Nigeria, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France, Sri Lanka and China.
There will also be six Olympians within the squads. For Cambridge, this includes two-time Olympian Claire Collins, alongside reserve athlete for the 2024 British Olympic team, James Robson. For Oxford, this includes Paris men’s eight bronze medallist Nick Rusher, Paris women’s eight bronze medallist Heidi Long, Tokyo men’s eight gold medallist Tom Mackintosh, as well as Paris Olympian Nicholas Kohl. Meanwhile, Harry Brightmore, Paris gold medallist in the men’s eight, has joined Oxford as an assistant coach.
Asked by host, Olympic champion and four-time Boat Race winner Constantine Louloudis MBE, if this year’s race would be “rinse and repeat” for Cambridge, Women’s President, Lucy Havard, who is pursuing a PhD in Early Modern History at Gonville & Caius College, said: “Absolutely not – it’s never the same, every year it’s new people and Boat Race wins don’t come easily. Everyone is gunning for it, everyone is putting so much time and effort in.”
Luca Ferraro, who is taking an MPhil in History of Art and Architecture at Peterhouse, was asked about how it felt to take on the responsibility of Men’s President. “I would be lying if I didn’t say it didn’t add a certain extra layer… racing an opponent you don’t really get to meet at full strength until next year,” he said. “You have the odd moment of thinking are we doing the right things, are we going fast enough and no-one feels that quite as keenly as the President, but we are surrounded by such a great team and it is so rewarding to have that extra level of responsibility.”
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