Amongst all the coverage of the main boat race, it’s likely you won’t have heard about the other Oxford victory this weekend. A winning crew that was all American, in a race that few people are even aware of taking place.

The spare pairs are the backups for the main squads, the fallback just in case anything goes wrong. They do the same training as the Blue boats and reserve crews, but their race, two days ahead of the boat race itself, is over a shorter course, from the start point to milepost.

The idea is to keep the athletes fresh, just in case they’re needed for the main event, as Cambridge spare man Andrew Smith was this year -- finding himself in the 3 seat of the victorious Goldie crew as a result of Wayne Pommen’s injury on Friday.

Watching the Isis / Goldie race from one of the launches on Sunday, were the winning Oxford spare pair -- Montana Butsch, 22, a Chigagoan from the University of Pennsylvania and Brian Romanzo,23, a Princeton Graduate.

“We had an “interesting” start to our race” said Butsch, who is no stranger to the Tideway, having rowed at Queen’s Tower and Thames RC in his gap year.

“We were pointed about 15 degrees off course at the start, so were down initially, as we had to row round in an arc to get back on line with Cambridge. However, because we had the inside of the bend and were rowing a little bit better when the water got choppy, we were able to pull ahead past the black buoy, and finished up 2 lengths ahead. I think we saw 38 and a half once or twice, but we were pretty much rating dead 40 for the whole mile”

Romanzo, who was the Captain of the Princeton lwt crew last year, admits he has found the whole experience very different from Princeton.

“There’s a completely different emphasis, and at times when I first got here it was quite frustrating. You’re used to one program then you’re thrown into another immediately and you start questioning things. But then you realise it’s the boat race, it’s a unique experience and it’s like nothing else.”

“It’s unique in that you have no idea how fast your opposition is. You go throughout the entire year , 7months - with no idea how fast Cambridge is. But it looked like the lighter crew really pulled it off today.”

Sometimes it’s hard to see what the spare pair get from the experience, putting in the hours while knowing they won’t get any recognition.

“We worked it out at 6 ½ hours of training per stroke” laughed Butsch , “we got to 1008 hours of training for 4 minutes of racing, so you can do the math yourself.”

Asked if they would trade a win in the spare pair for a loss in Isis, their response was stoical.

“We have to remain quiet on that question, in the end it’s all a team effort, it’s about the blue boat coming out ahead. We don’t get to race 4 ¼ miles, and some would say that’s a good thing, but everyone wants to be in the best possible boat, so yes, we would have liked to have been in Isis and to have done well there.”

As for next year, both men are planning to stick around for another try at securing a seat in the main event. We wish them well.