Countdown starts to The Boat Race 2027

This season has added significance as 2027 is the centenary of the Women’s Race. To mark the anniversary, two new trophies will be awarded to the victorious men’s and women’s crews. As well as this, the order of the races on Sunday 11 April 2027 will be reversed. The Men’s Boat Race will take place first at 15:40, followed by the Women’s Boat Race at 16:40.

At yesterday’s event, hosted by broadcaster Claire Balding, Cambridge Presidents Eloise Etherington (Natural Sciences, Gonville & Caius) and Simon Hatcher (Engineering, Peterhouse) challenged Oxford Presidents Kyra Delray and Alex Sullivan to the race on the Thames in April.

Paying tribute to The Boat Race student athletes past and present, Clare Balding said: “This is one of the true amateur sporting events in the world, where you are doing it for the love of it.

“There’s no financial reward and you are combining that with studying all sorts of subjects. The countdown might start here, but obviously your tutors will be telling you that essays still need to be handed in and exams still need to be prepared for!”

Siobhan Cassidy, Chair of The Boat Race Company Limited said the change in the order of the races would be a fitting way of marking the centenary.

“We know that will really put the focus on the young women who are the sporting heirs of the pioneers from 1927,” she said.

“I think we all recognise how participating in sport alongside education benefits the individual but also society as a whole and there is no doubt that the Women’s Boat Race has played a part in UK women’s progress towards equality of opportunity.”

Celebrations got underway in Cambridge last weekend to mark the centenary. The University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Boat Club brought together eight generations of Cambridge women to honour the past, celebrate the present, and look ahead to the next chapter in a remarkable story.

Other planned celebrations include a centenary re-enactment which will take place on the River Isis in Oxford where the first Women’s Boat Race took place on 15 March 1927. And a commemorative magazine, Against the Stream, has been produced which is available to view on the Cambridge University Boat Club website.