Turning The Tide: Episode 1 | The Gemini Boat Race 2024 – Oxford v Cambridge Rowing

In the wake of a whitewash defeat in 2023, Oxford are determined to reverse their fortunes in The Gemini Boat Race on 30th March 2024. Motivation has never been higher as they meticulously navigate the path to victory, but one obstacle remains: a defiant Cambridge relentlessly pursuing an historic period of dominance.

A new YouTube series, Turning The Tide aims to tell the story of the season so far ahead of The Gemini Boat Race 2024 on 30th March 2024.

Episode 1 will premiere at 9pm on 13th March after the crews have been announced at the new format Crew Announcement: https://www.theboatrace.org/crew-announcement

Nervous nervous moment blue of Cambridge on the right hand side of your screen the dark blue of Oxford on builds up to this in the next 20 minutes pressure is intense everything we’ve done is leading up to this moment attention go we really really excited to race kind

Of show the world what we’ve been preparing for 7 months all was really running smoothly we were really really happy with how the boat was going we’ actually made so much progress in the last week before the race off the start line pretty good decent start yeah going

Into it pretty happy the first couple of minutes was good really gutsy race they train and practice these starts over and over again they’re about 600 Strokes in a boat race but the first few are so so important and Oxford looked have got off to a Bright Start and they picked up

Some momentum going up towards hars they made the decision to cut in front into our water very very aggressive we had a plan that if they tried to cut in front of us then I would call a move we had a meeting with the Umpire earlier in the week if they do

This and we respond will you disqualify them and Matt Smith said yes if they cut in front of you you hit into them I will disqualify them I remember I was calling this is it this is your we take them out now called a massive push there everyone absolutely committed

This is Our Moment this is our race this is how we’re going to win this year this was going to be the race where in the past 100 years a crew had been disqualified there were so many emotions we were hanging on for as as many

Strokes as we could we were inches I called I said you know 2 feet one foot has to move or they are in trouble serious trouble move and they are going for it they know this if Oxford can bump Cambridge you know you could have disqualifications in a scenario like That never came didn’t happen six in a row for the Light Blues bow race is one of the oldest rivalries in sport probably the best known rowing race in the world 4 and a/4 mile race along the tideway in London from patney to Mort Lake high fast water if the winds against it gets quite rough we all know about the clashing it’s a

One-on-one Oxford versus Cambridge been going on for almost 200 years one shot chance on that day the first challenge was in 1829 Victory is absolute defeat is total the big one the you know side by side down the championship course for that long iconic the gravity of the

Event the spectacle of at all most years you have Olympians who will leave the Olympic cycle and apply to Oxford Cambridge I think it’s only ever been cancelled for war chera or dentry or something and Co we take thousands and thousands of stroke each week sacrifice so much time

For one moment for one sort of 15 minute race and the first bow ball across the line Wins Oxford hasn’t won a woman’s boat race in 6 years it’s not looking good for us and this really is the year we need to turn it around there definitely that sort of absolute sort of head down focus in the fact that no no we we are

Going to make a change here we are going to make a change it’s been 6 years since Oxford women have won our boat race it’s been you one in five for the men we’ve not had the best run in the last few years and we’re certainly not here to to lose

We’ve learned a lot of lessons last year was a particularly painful uh year to lose in I don’t want to do it again this year we’re going to turn the tide there’s nothing that’s clearer in our minds than trying to beat Cambridge in March we have to win this Race day one everyone’s kind of a bit like a rabbit in the headlights we’ll have lots of returners to the team and then we’ll have lots of new people um so there’s some figuring out to do there for them and for us a heavier than you some have

Been to the Olympics some have learned to row at college and you’ve got pretty much everything in between in the habit of taking the shoes in and out and putting there’ll be new people coming into the program but many of those people we all again have been in communication with

Glover have quite a bit of admin to do especially with that many athletes that early on we have things like head shots we all have to take um we all have um sizing for all of our kit oh there what happened there learning people’s names people are learning each

Other’s names you’re trying to get crews out on the water it’s chaotic to say the least you want to take tabies Erica did you want to take tabies so where is it at right now is this these are some are they all out can they all or can you just Usher them

Out over time over osmosis people figure out what we want and and how we’re going to do it and and we’re clear about some of those those those major boundaries the things we want to achieve what the involvement in this club is and and what

What we are here to do and to make sure that’s very clear make sure the athletes are really engaged with that process and bought into that the last sort of few years particularly last year we’ve been really really positive for the club we’ve seen a huge amount of success but obviously

The challenge is to keep making steps forward to never let things stagnate never let things get complacent keep finding ways to push the speed on we have had opportunities and we’ve grasped those opportunities which has created a culture of winning you know taking advantages of mistakes made by your opposition that allowed us

Certainly on the women’s side to explode into you a really long winning streak it’s really great to be on a winning streak um but I think it’s really important that we continue to kind of push forward um every year every year is just a new season it’s a new

Group of athletes coming in didn’t start with a head start from from getting the job done last year it would be pretty easy to to kind of go away from that that clean sweep and just think that you know what we have is a kind of winning

Formula and and slip into going through the motions you know both sides have a unique challenge kind of in front of them I definitely feel more pressure after loss as a club know we’re we’re here to win so I think you of course the pressure does built and you know life

Only gets harder if you’re not winning so an added stress that the women from Oxford face this year is that we didn’t have a coach in June of 23 um we heard that uh Andy was leaving the rumor mill was flying as it always does in Roaring and I think that for us

It was about continuing our training and getting things flowing and continuing as we normally would um and I can only imagine how challenging it must have been but also I think that it was quite nice hearing things even on bank holiday weekend in August we hadn’t fully

Confirmed who the coach was going to be and it wasn’t until the Tuesday morning that the season started that day that we were able to announce to the co to the whole team that the head coach was Alan French the start of campaign meeting was something which was incredibly important

To me um it it was quite a close call I think the birth of my second child son Henry did come a matter of hours before that that meeting one of the first boat race specific events as part him was the President’s challenge uh happened in London in November every year the president of the previous year’s losing Squad um challenges the president of the winning Squad to the boat race um and that generally happens in London um in kind of media event the Pres of challenge is a weird one because it’s the first time you see

Anybody from their team for that year and often people will bring their recruits people who theyve brought in from us universities or anyone who has International experience so it’s almost the present’s chance to be like hey look who I’ve got and flex who they’ve got on

Their team and so it’s a bit of a weird night but yeah it’s lots of intimidating handshakes and staring into each other’s eyes trying to be really intimidating and Scary it feels like almost the start of the season of course we’d been training for months up until that point but that I think was the first time that it really felt real that this was this was [Applause] happening I think it’s really important and I quite like going to it I think it it puts the opposition uh makes them real they’re there in the room with you and the challenge makes the race real so I I like to go to that I think it helps

Me as a coach it puts uh puts you much more in the face of the opposition you feel like you’re part of this historical thing and you feel kind of the weight of that on you more so than pretty much any other time that I’ve actually been a

Part of the race a special moment quite a powerful moment to be a part of this is the real start of here’s our team here’s what we’re doing and here’s what you’re going to have to deal with in March once the challenge has been made and accepted the race is officially

On I think we always knew that’ be challenges but I think this year in particular I don’t think we quite appreciated quite how many we would be Facing thought we were out the woods but we’re not no