OXFORD'S BOAT RACE

Evening Star, Issue 25770, 17 April 1946, Page 4

OXFORD'S BOAT RACE

The first University boat race under classic Putney-Mortlake conditions for six years attracted rather larger and more enthusiastic crowds than usual (writes our correspondent, April 4). AH the way from Putney to Mortlake both banks of the Thames became in effect alfresco grandstands. Oxford's victory was tremenodusly popular, for several reasons. Until a week before the race all the experts predicted that Cambridge, half a stone per man the

heavier crew, would be fairly comfortable winners. But a week before the great day symptoms suspiciously like 'flu affected four members of the Cambridge boat. The day' before the race a well-toown Australian oarsman, who went to have a look' at the_ two crews practising, told me in his opinion " Oxford will walk it." They certainly did. Though Oxford might have won in any event, the Light Blue display suggested that they were still feeling the effects of that indisposition. But it was, nevertheless, a genuine triumph of style over muscle.