The Guardian has an inside look at Cambridge University’s preparations in the lead up to the 2024 Boat Race. In the photo essay, published before Cambridge won the men’s and women’s boat races, both lightweight races, and the men’s reserves race, Tom Jenkins follows the Light Blues beginning in December with the Thames Trials while providing quite a bit of history of the 195-year race along the way.
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The photo essay provides an uncommonly candid behind-the-scenes view of the months of training that goes into one, single trip down the Thames on Easter weekend. The peculiarities of the Boat Race are not lost on Jenkins or others in the sporting community, but it may be those very peculiarities which ensure the enduring appeal of the event.
As Jenkins summarizes, “A sporting pinnacle being contested on a fast-flowing, unpredictable river by two teams of university students – it’s pretty bizarre. But maybe it’s that quirkiness that keeps the race, after almost two hundred years, still going strong.
