Casual passers-by wandering past the front of Thames rowing club in Putney this afternoon would have been forgiven for assuming that Oxford had already won the 2005 Oxford Cambridge boat race, such was the level of media attention on the dark blues follow the traditional crew weigh in.

The Oxford blue boat, with an average weight per man of 98.4kg (216.8 lbs) are not only the heaviest crew ever in the 151 year history of the race, but also have a 20lbs a man weight advantage over the Cambridge blue boat, where the average weight is a mere 88.5kg (195.1 lbs).

Quite how much of either side's average is down to that other boat race tradition – drinking as much water as possible before getting on the scales – we can't say for sure, but the Oxford Five man, Canadian Chris Liwski (100.1kg), did claim that he for one hadn't drunk anything, as he'd been trying to get under 100kg in case his father told him off for being too heavy...

The Oxford stroke man Andy Triggs Hodge also weighed in over the 100kg mark but the heaviest rower is Jason Flickinger at an impressive 105.2kg.

There's quite a substantial North American presence in the race again this year; Cambridge have Luke Walton in bow and Steffen Buschbacher in seven, whilst Oxford have Barney Williams at Bow, Chris Liwski at five, Mike Blomquist at 6 and Jason Flickinger at seven.

Check out the gallery of weigh-in photos.