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Row, row, row your boat...

Rowing – The Boat Race

Saturday 3 April on ´óÏó´«Ã½ One

• Programme copy

The 156th Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race takes place on Saturday 3 April 2010 and is back on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Television after a five-year absence. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ first broadcast the race in 1938 and it has grown to become one of the nation's staple sporting events. On race day, up to 250,000 spectators crowd the banks of the Thames from Putney to Mortlake to witness the action and the race is now televised in more than 150 countries.

Dan Topolski is one of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s co-commentators, himself a former rowing coach who coached Oxford to victory no less than 12 times. Here, he tells Programme Information why the boat race is different from many other sporting events.

"It's a purely amateur event. The rowers do it for the honour and the love of the sport – not for money. They are first and foremost students at the two universities taking part in a brutal race requiring Olympic-standard training and involving many Olympic-level athletes in a competition which has been going for 181 years. It's a very traditional British event, raced at the worst time of the year, often in terrible conditions over a winding course, full of uncertainty and tactics, which, at four and a quarter miles, is three times longer than the usual Olympic distance. The chances of a sinking, of clashes or of disqualification and collapse gives it a rare unpredictability and sense of potential danger – a bit like Formula 1."

So who to root for, Oxford or Cambridge? Dan gives the lowdown on the two boat crews:

"Oxford, the dark blues, are behind in the series 75 to 79; however they have won four out of the last five (2005, 2006 and in 2008 and 2009). Ultimately, they are trying to draw level for the first time in 100 years. They got close – just one behind – in 1992, but still have a way to go. They have the Winklevoss twins – Cameron and Tyler – who came up with the idea for Facebook when they were at Harvard. Oxford's President (captain) Sjoerd Hamburger from Holland is the only person in the boat who rowed last year. He is 6ft 9ins tall.

"Cambridge are the light blues. They lead the series overall but have lost the last two races so they want to produce a first win for their new coach, Chris Nielsen, who arrived from New Zealand last year. Cambridge have three men who rowed in the race last year including their American President, Deaglan McEachern. There are also three from their second crew, Goldie, so most of the crew know the course very well."

Dan's three things you never knew about the race are:

"In the six months leading up to the race the rowers will have trained about 800 hours – that's nearly 45 hours for every minute of the race. They will have rowed more than 5,000km (approximately 3,500 miles) on rivers and lakes; and done another six hours a week in the gym doing weight-lifting, circuit training and ergometer rowing machine work.

"The two coxes are the smallest men in the boat and have to weigh no less than 55kg. They are the eyes and ears of the crew and have to read the race and get their rowers to carry out the race plan. They are steering the boats and if there are clashes, they get the blame – especially if their crew loses. The winning cox traditionally gets thrown into the river by their crew after the race – supposedly as the rowers' revenge for having been shouted at all winter during training.

"All but five of the 18 competitors in the race will be trying to win places in their national teams at the London Olympics in 2012, including the two strokemen – the leaders of the crews who sit opposite the coxes – who are both British Under-23 internationals. Three of the Oxford crew rowed in the Beijing Olympics – Hamburger and the Winklevoss twins."