"Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion,
reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence”
William Blake (1757–1827),

In the annual fight between Dark and Light, of Surrey against Middlesex, Oxford against Cambridge, the battle behind the scenes, is the love-hate relationship that mainstream rowing holds with the boat race, an event that, while completely unrepresentative of the rest of the racing calendar, holds a strange fascination in the mind of the general public.

There is, of course, no problem with Oxford and Cambridge wishing to compete against each other in rowing, they do so in every other sport with minimal attention. What makes the boat race unique is the coverage it receives from the national and world-wide press. In the other Oxford vs. Cambridge annual matches, only coverage of the Varsity Match (Rugby), played at the England ground in Twickenham, comes close. In the rest of rowing, no other event gets a look in and herein lies the cause of the problem.

Rowing is a sport starved of media coverage, for 51 weeks of the year relegated to occasional articles in local papers and the odd five second clip of crews crossing the line at the world champs. The only exception to this rule in recent years has been Sir Steve Redgrave -- and ironically, the only “name” in the sport (and it took him 5 Olympic golds to get noticed) can now only be seen competing in golf matches. The draw of the boat race to the rowing community is therefore understandable, it offers the holy grail of worldwide exposure to the sport, but it offers it at a cost.

Rowing does not transfer well to television, because it is a competitor sport, not a spectator sport (I doubt anyone will disagree that the real attraction of rowing is in taking part). So it should be no real surprise that the media coverage of the boat race has very little to do with rowing.

As if to prove this point, last year the BBC failed to show a single second of the Goldie/Isis race, preferring instead to use the time on air to interview non-rowing girlfriends and parents, and show clips of drying kit on training camp. The mainstream media prefers to focus on the preparation of the crews and race statistics: the tallest rower; the smallest cox; the heaviest crew; the weight differential; how many races each side has won; who wins the toss; what station will he pick... This year they’re even using GPS to chart the exact position of the boats in relation to each other and the course!

Every year the numbers are rolled out, as if some insight into what drives these men to put themselves through a gruelling training regime to row in one race, can be gleaned through 150 years of statistics, the race itself, soon relegated to just another line on the list, the individual oarsmen forgotten.

The double edged sword is that in exchange for this much wanted media exposure, the sport of rowing has been cursed with a skewed perception in the mind of the general public that arises from the lopsided coverage it gets. The perception that this is a sport for rich ex-public school boys, the perception that all rowers are ‘toffs’, the perception that the Oxford Cambridge boat race is the most important race in the rowing calendar, the perception that the average rower cares who wins, all myths, which if not perpetuated, are certainly not dispelled by the majority of the coverage.

In reality, the clubs on the Tideway view the event as an opportunity to make money from the crowds on the towpath and an excuse to drink beer (not that they need one). I watched with amusement last year as one passer-by remarked to a rower selling hot-dogs outside his club at Hammersmith “oh you must be excited, this is your big day isn’t it”. The response is unrepeatable here, but suffice to say it wasn’t what the passer-by was expecting. Likewise, the UK rowing world smiled when Redgrave, appearing on TV sports quiz, A Question of Sport, a couple of years ago, failed to recognise the then Oxford President, Dan Snow.

The winners in all this are the boat race crews themselves. The high profile of the race ensures a supply of high standard British and International Oarsmen to raise the quality of the racing in non-Olympic years and you only need to look at the number of world medal winners who have competed in the event to realise that it is always a good ground for talent spotting. This year is no exception and spread amongst the crews and reserves are eight Americans, three Canadians, four Australians and three Germans.

Love it or hate it, the boat race is here to stay, so grab a beer, tune in and enjoy the spectacle.

For the full experience and check out the BBC Boat race web page at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/boat_race_2003/