Boat race: A bolt from Light Blues

CAMBRIDGE won the 144th Boat Race in the fastest time ever; beating Oxford by three lengths in 16min 19sec. This was much more than a record. The Light Blues finished 26 seconds inside the time set in 1984 by Oxford, rowing that time with a strong easterly wind.

Yesterday the wind was the lightest of following breezes but the tide was heading for the heights and running strongly under the crews.

The winners can easily claim to be the the best crew in the race's history having beaten the records for height, at an average of 6ft 5 1/2in, and weight at nearly 16st before they started, and rowing on the day with an efficiency and fluency that shut out any chance of an Oxford recovery once they had dropped to clear water behind after Hammersmith Bridge.

At the start, Oxford looked the smoother away and took a tiny lead in the first minute. Much depended for the lighter crew on settling into an easy, sustainable rhythm.

Oxford's Nick Robinson looked the more relaxed of the two stroke men while Marc Weber, much more experienced as a world champion and Olympic silver medallist, was looking tense and strained, not so much by the physical effort, as by the closeness of the crews as the coxes drifted in and out of contact for the whole of the long bend from the Black Buoy to the Mile Post.

Crucially, with Oxford perhaps a third-of-a-length ahead, which roughly represents the value of the first bend to the crew on Middlesex side, a clash produced a warning for both crews from the umpire, Mike Sweeney.

He waved the Oxford crew, steered for the second year by Alex Greaney, into the dead water over the Fulham Flats. Immediately Cambridge began to cruise back on terms at the Mile Post and away into a lead soon after. The next five warnings spread over half-a-mile denied Greaney the chance to get back on to the stream.

Sweeney, direct and clear afterwards, said: "They wanted the same piece of water and on the day the course is decided by my view of where the stream runs."

It is clear that Cambridge took advantage of a momentary advantage and lead sooner than they might have. But this moment did not affect the outcome. Cambridge were a powerhouse and the further ahead they went the better they looked.

Robinson stayed loose and his crew were still moving easily but Cambridge were beginning to assert their power. Weber and Forster, the two German world champions, were driving the whole powerful unit along and the long levers behind them were finding the time to put in the tactical bursts with more and more deadly purpose.

Cambridge pushed hard along the Chiswick Eyot and had five seconds at the Steps before storming home at steady low rates but with a mass of muscle devoted to the record.

Oxford tried a last-ditch effort from the Bandstand to Barnes Bridge and pulled back half a length or so but once they had made the last reach, the Light Blues raced for home at 37 strokes to the minute while Oxford could not raise much more than 34.