Parking facilities at the CUBC Boathouse are minimal in any event but were reduced even more so due to working within the Covid-19 restrictions for broadcast equipment and the Oxford marquee.
Isle of Ely Rowing Club filming with Mike Bushell from BBC Breakfast
- Credit: ISLE OF ELY ROWING CLUB
Some of us acted as marshals and others drove the launches.
As you know this isn’t the first time the Boat Race has been rowed on the Queen Adelaide straight.
But it is the first time a TV audience has been able to see the glorious River Great Ouse from cameras at river level and from drones and helicopters above.
The Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge Universities holds a bizarre grip on English collegiate athletics. It is astonishingly popular. In one instance, 15 million people tuned into the BBC to watch the Light and Dark Blue mens’ teams do battle, with almost 300,000 live spectators along the river itself. From afar, it is difficult to see the appeal of watching 16 dudes rowing up the Thames while their coxes shout (presumably) helpful things at them, but it’s clearly there.
The Race itself is a little more than four miles long, starting at Putney in southwest London and ending at Chiswick Bridge upstream (the Thames is tidal in London, so the Race is timed such that the flood tide pushes the current in the direction of rowing). Modern crews can manage this in under 17 minutes, and the universities have had a