The Boat Race
rowing race between Oxford and Cambridge Universities held in London, England
The Boat Race is an annual set of rowing races between the Cambridge University Boat Club and the Oxford University Boat Club, traditionally rowed between open-weight eights on the River Thames in London, England. It is also known as the University Boat Race and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.
The men's race was first held in 1829 and is the second oldest inter-university sporting event in the world. It has been held annually since 1856, except during the First and Second World Wars (although unofficial races were conducted) and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The first women's event was held in 1927, and the Women's Boat Race has been an annual event since 1964. Since 2015, the women's race has taken place on the same day and course, and since 2018 the combined event of the two races has been referred to as "The Boat Race".
A reserve (2nd VIII) boat race has also been held since 1965 for the men and since 1966 for the women.
The Championship Course has hosted the vast majority of the races. Covering a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) stretch of the Thames in West London, from Putney to Mortlake, it is over three times the distance of an Olympic race. Members of both crews are traditionally known as blues and each boat as a "Blue Boat", with Cambridge in light blue and Oxford in dark blue.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Boat Race” is rowing race between Oxford and Cambridge Universities held in London, England. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Boat, Race and rowing, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q887604. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1829, 1856, 2020 and 1927.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Boat Race” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.