The Boat Race:

The Boat Race is a set of annual rowing races between the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, rowed between eights on the River Thames in London, England. It is also known as the University Boat Race. It usually takes place on the last weekend of March or the first weekend of April. The most recent race was the 2015 race which took place on Saturday 11 April 2015, with Oxford winning the race by 20 seconds.

The first race was in 1829 and the event has been held annually since 1856, except during the first and second World War. The course covers a 4,2 mile (6,8 KM) stretch of the Thames in West London. Members of both teams are traditionally known as blues and each boats are « Blue Boat », with Cambridge in Light blue and Oxford dark blue. Cambridge has won the race 81 times and Oxford 79 with one dead heat.

The race is well-established and very popular. Upwards of 250,000 people watch the race from the banks of the river each year, while a further 15 millions or more watch in television.

Academic status: 

Oxford University does not offer sport scholarships at entry; student-athletes are not admitted differently to any other students and must meet the academic requirements of the university, with sport having a neutral effect on any application. Likewise, bursaries and scholarship opportunities for athletes at the University of Cambridge are only open to those students who have already been admitted to the University on academic merit.

Participants in the boat race are indeed academically capable: the 2005 Cambridge crew, for example, contains four PhD students, including a qualified medical doctor and a veterinarian.

In order to protect the status of the race as a competition between genuine students, the Boat Race organizing committee in July 2007 refused to award a blue to 2006 and 2007 Cambridge oarsman Thorsten Engelmann, as he did not complete his academic course and instead return to the German national team to prepare for the Beijing Olympics. This has caused a debate aboute a change of rules, and one suggestion is that only students who are enrolled in courses lasting at least two years should be eligible to race.