23 March 2026

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch on part of the build-up to 4 April.

The Digital Boat Race Programme 2026 is now available for free download. Go to www.theboatrace.org/digital-programme and enter your email address, tick the consent box and submit. The programme arrives immediately. A glossy print version can be ordered here. 

Before I give my impressions of the programme, there have been some interesting developments regarding the broadcasting of the great day.

The Boat Race recently confirmed a partnership with Times Radio, which will see the digital station become the event’s official radio partner in a three-year agreement running until 2028. Times Radio will broadcast live from the Boat Race with presenter Jane Mulkerrins hosting a special edition of her Saturday afternoon programme from the riverside in Putney from 1pm to 4pm. A press release says:

She will be joined by a line-up of rowing royalty and local celebrity guests, bringing listeners the atmosphere, analysis and reaction from the Championship Course. Times Radio will produce a series of preview features in the build-up to this year’s event, while the package will also include previews in The Times and The Sunday Times, a live race day blog on The Times website and cross-promotion of the event across the wider News UK network.

We are told that Times Radio is one of the UK’s newest and fastest-growing radio stations, listened to by a highly engaged, culturally curious and affluent demographic. At least two of those attributes also describe HTBS Types.

In further broadcast news, Overnight, the global streaming platform for Olympic and untapped sports, has secured the international digital streaming rights to the Boat Race across the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand through to 2030.

It was announced in October that the UK’s Channel 4 (C4) has, following an open tender, secured exclusive free-to-air broadcasting rights to the Boat Race in a five-year deal starting in 2026. The agreement covers both the men’s and women’s races and includes the centenary of the Women’s Boat Race in 2027 and the Men’s race bicentenary in 2029. 

Like the BBC, Channel 4 is a public service broadcaster but, while the BBC is funded by a compulsory licence fee, C4 is commercially funded. The channel has a reputation for taking irreverent looks at British national institutions, but it will continue to use the same specialist sports production company, FilmNova, as has been used by the BBC since 2022

Channel 4 takes over from the BBC which first televised the event in 1938 and carried it continuously for 87 years apart from the five years from 2005 when ITV took over. ITV did not attempt to renew its contract after the 2009 Race citing high production costs.

BBC sources denied a report in the Daily Telegraph that the BBC’s Director of Sport, Alex Kay-Jelski, was unenthusiastic about retaining the rights, allegedly viewing the event as “elitist”. The BBC claimed that the decision had been purely based on the return on investment.

One of the most interesting articles in the programme is Tom Ransley’s Boat Race preview, Who Will Reign Supreme?. He is surprisingly frank considering he is writing in an official and non-partisan publication:

…the Cambridge Juggernaut continues, for now at least. Any signs of rust? Besides an early season slip (by the women at the Head of the Charles when Oxford beat them by 22 seconds), no, not really…

However, Ransley says that it’s not all bad for the Oxford women:

The Oxford women’s squad has plenty of Boat Race experience to draw on. Six of the 2025 Blue Boat and half of Osiris are back… Oxford boasts Olympians among their ranks… President Heidi Long won an Olympic bronze medal in the British women’s eight at the 2024 Paris Games… (Spanish Olympian) Esther Briz Zamorano is new to the team… Kyra Delray is… a European A-finalist and world medalist… American newcomers Emily Molins and Julietta Camahort are… both Under-23 medalists. Hope then for their Chief Coach, Allan French.

Few would dispute that this is the strongest Oxford women’s squad for several years – but Cambridge have not exactly gone backwards.

However, when Ransley moves to the men’s race, he subtitles the section, No Pulling Punches. And he does not:

The Men’s Boat Race 2026 is a mismatch of monstrous proportions, as per one Oxford insider, who lamented: “If this were a boxing match it wouldn’t be sanctioned.”

It’s true. The recent run of results has skewed Light Blue. Cambridge have won six of the last seven races. Another win and theirs will be the longest Men’s Boat Race winning streak since the ‘90s…

In an attempt to turn the tide, Oxford have spent the last few seasons… instigating sweeping changes… Positive change doesn’t happen overnight, but in his second season in the job, things are not looking too bright for the… Oxford men’s chief coach, Mark Fangen-Hall.

While this may appear harsh, Mark Fangen-Hall may appear to support Ransley’s sentiments in his candid contribution to the programme in the section for presidents’ and coaches’ submissions titled Final Thoughts. These pieces are normally an exercise in not saying much in 500 words, but Fangen-Hall wrote: 

While recent Boat Race results have not reflected our ambitions, we are now putting in place foundations designed to endure.

The move to a CEO-led operating model, alongside renewed clarity of governance, marks an important step forward for the Club. Our shared aim is not simply to chase short-term results, but to build a programme capable of sustaining excellence over time – athletically, culturally, and institutionally. The impact of this shift is already being felt…

Cambridge sets the current benchmark, and that is understood. Our task is to build a programme where structural clarity enables athletic ambition, and where individual development feeds collective performance… This work is underway.

Make of that what you will. I can only make one thing out of it.

CUBC is in a very different place to OUBC and Paddy Ryan, Cambridge Women’s Chief Coach, can afford to give away some of their current strategy:

Unlike previous campaigns, we kept the number of squad athletes high in order to allow up-and-coming college rowers more time training in this elite environment. Our goal is to support a higher standard of athlete year-on-year and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge.

On a lighter (and darker) note, I liked the article by historian Kassia St. Clair on the origins of the Light Blue and the Dark Blue. It is a well researched piece that dispels many myths and historical inaccuracies.

Other historical pieces that caught my eye was one recording the fact that, following the closure of Henley’s River and Rowing Museum, the Boat Race trophies will be on display for members and their guests at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall, London, for 364 days of the year.

Friend of HTBS, Gavin Jamieson, author of Water’s Gleaming Gold, the story of oarsman and coach Hugh “Jumbo” Edwards, writes on the Boat Race of 1926, a century on from Jumbo’s famous collapse in the race.

In a piece titled London Calling, London Transport Head Curator Matt Brosnan uncovers the stories behind ten iconic Boat Race posters. It is an interesting read though I preferred my HTBS article on all forty of the posters that London Transport produced promoting travel to the Boat Race between 1910 and 2012. Unfortunately, London Transport made me take it down citing copyright reasons.

Blowing my own trumpet (not easy after sour grapes) I have two articles published, one on Sandy Irvine, 1923 Boat Race winner with Oxford and someone who may (or may not) have been one of the two men to first reach the summit of what we in the West call Mount Everest. 

Also, I am very happy that my obituary and tribute to Chris Dodd was included. Quite rightly it had been subtitled, A long-time and pivotal member of the Boat Race community. The coverage of Boat Race Day will not be the same without Chris’ unique take.