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The Oxford Men's Eight (front) won both the 500m sprint and the 2000m race, with Cambridge second and University of Cape Town (back) third.

Metres of duct tape might have made all the difference as Oxford beat the Cambridge and University of Cape Town rowing teams in difficult conditions on the Zambezi on Saturday.

The 2010 Zambezi International Regatta is the fourth time that Oxford and Cambridge Alumni have competed against eachother and South African teams at the Zambian boat club just 5km upstream of Victoria Falls. The event has been held in Livingstone previously in 2004, 2005 and 2007. Additionally this year marked the 100^th anniversary of The World Professional Sculling Championships, held on the Zambezi in 1910.

After winning the 500m sprint earlier in the day, Oxford knew that their size counted against them in the windy and choppy waters of Africa’s fourth largest river. This team, boasting all former Oxford Blues or Isis rowers as well as a number of Olympians and World Champions, was noticeably bigger built than their competitors and would be disadvantaged by the boat sitting lower in the water. Minutes before heading to the start, the team could be seen strapping metres of silver-grey tape around the riggers to provide a small barrier to the waves and splashes. “If we sit too low in the water in windy conditions like this, the waves will come crashing over the boat. If that happens too early in the race, we’ll be pulling a boat full of water,” explained the American two-time Olympian and three-time World Champion Michael Wherley. “It doesn’t always work, as it could catch the wind, but on a day like today it’s good to try something like this.”

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the The World Professional Sculling Championships, Dan Arnold (back), winner of the 2010 Dogget's Coat and Badge Race, beat Dan Barry (foreground), the great great nephew of one of the original competitors.

The three scullers competing in the Centenary Sculling Race not only had the wind and waves to deal with, but the fact that their training sessions had proved that their boats were prone to being followed by crocodiles. Competing over the 500m course, UK’s Dan Arnold beat fellow Briton Dan Barry and South African Rika Diedericks. Barry’s great great uncle, Ernest Barry, competed in the 1910 Professional Sculling Championships and was beaten by that year’s winner of the Dogget’s Cloak and Badge Race, the oldest rowing race in the world. Likewise this year, Arnold, fresh from winning at Dogget’s, beat Barry, with female competitor Rika Diedericks, a Beijing Olympian, coming in third.

Oxford women (front) were beaten into second place by the University of Johannesburg Eights (back) in both the 500m sprint and the 2000m race, with Cambridge third.

The women’s races also ended with identical scores for both events: University of Johannesburg making a clean sweep, with Oxford second and Cambridge third. UJ team captain Tiffany Rolando, sporting bloody fingers at the finish after hitting her hand on the strut in the rough conditions, summarised their 2000m win: “Even though we won the 500m sprint, we didn’t go out there feeling confident or cocky. We knew 2km is a whole different race. We decided to keep to our race plan: to go out strong at the start, and get into our stride quick and early. That’s what we did. The girls gave 100%. Then we just kept tapping away. When we had an incident like the finger incident, we just recovered quickly and went on.”

Cox Thabang Leon Mobobodi, who was given much credit by his team for the way he kept them calm, even when they were banging their knees and missing strokes in the rough conditions, said: “It’s incredible to race against such teams. You look up to them. You watch them on TV. Now managing to beat them gives us a lot of confidence as a team.”

The combined scores of the Oxford men’s and women’s eights saw them win the Victor Ludorum for best overall performance on the day, with the two South African universities in second place and Cambridge third.

Tags: Cambridge, Oxford, rowing, UCT, UJ, Zambezi, Zambezi International Regatta