THREE HOMERTON students picked for the Cambridge University boat race squad revealed their excitement as they looked forward to taking on Oxford University.
Annabel Stevens, Gianluca Vartan, and Emile Czernuszka are gearing up for the epic 195-year-old contest on the Thames river on Saturday 30 March.
Annabel, a postgraduate secondary sciences PGCE student at Homerton, and a member of the Blondie boat crew, said: “It means everything. It’s something that I never thought I’d ever be doing.
“I watched the boat race in London last year; it was the first time going and seeing in person. I watched the race and thought ‘I could definitely do that! That’s something I would love to do.’ It's magical. It’s actually really, really good.”
Cambridge - who have 86 wins to Oxford’s 81 on the all-time head-to-head record - dominated last year’s races, with the men’s team comprehensively beating their rivals.
Annabel added: “I think it's interesting as well, because we had a clean sweep last year, so we've got a lot to play for.
“The only thing we have to lose this year is like our not reputation, but but there's a lot at stake.”
Gianluca Vartan, a third-year architecture undergraduate at Homerton and a member of the men’s lightweight crew, said: “I’ve always been perhaps a bit smaller than my rowers in the boat, so coming to Cambridge and discovering lightweight rowing as a thing has been really special, and I’ve found my place, I feel. I’ve really enjoyed it here.”
He added: “The historic nature of one v. one, Oxford versus Cambridge, really is something special; and you know that there’s someone on the other side who’s training just as hard as you are, and you know that they’re really going to push everything into that boat race course.”
The first men’s race between the universities was held in 1829, and the first women’s race in 1927. The 4.2 mile race, from Putney to Mortlake, is over three times the distance of the Olympic rowing contests.
Typically, hundreds of thousands of spectators line the Thames each year, and the event is televised live with millions tuning in.
Emile, a third-year engineering undergraduate at Homerton and also a member of the lightweight team, said: “It’s pretty exciting. First time doing it. It’s a pretty big thing and it’s something that all of us in the boat really want, so it’s not so much a sacrifice [training] but a privilege.”
“You know, it's the oldest the oldest boating rivalry. Outside of Henley and the Olympics, nothing else comes close.”
