The boat race is a good reminder of how sports and politics intersect

With the divisions in British society arguably more obvious and more painful than ever, this year’s race could well become a lightning rod for protest

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that my alma mater, the University of Manchester, had once again failed to qualify for the boat race.

Presumably the team fell at the semi-final stage, though I guess there is always next year.

Ah yes, the boat race. More of a society event than a sporting one these days, and a day that rarely makes that big a dent in the newspaper world until something wild happens like Trenton Oldfield, an Australian man, jumping in the Thames during the 2012 renewal.

Olympic rower Sir Matthew Pinsent maintained that Oldfield, who sort of bobbed uneasily for a bit as everyone watched on in confusion, could have been killed. The man himself said he was protesting about the deaths of other people, principally through savage cuts by the government during David Cameron’s reign of crippling austerity.

If you can cast your mind back to a world of pre-Brexit, pre-Trump, pre-Instagram even, then austerity was a big topic of conversation.

And yet it’s hard to make the case that the government was more unpopular than than it is now, an era when we get to watch live on air as the parliamentarians elected to represent us try to work out what they’re voting on, why they’re voting for it and if they’re even allowed to.

Ah, democracy.

Many of those parliamentarians – a disproportionate amount, some would argue – went to Oxbridge and for all Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson’s talk of “the elite” blocking Brexit, it is in fact that well-trodden path from Eton to Oxford that has gotten so many muddy footprints all over the carpet of Britain’s reputation.

“Anyone living here today knows Britain is a brutal, deeply divided, class-driven place,” said Deepa Naik, the wife of Trenton Oldfield as he was sentenced to six months behind bars for his boat race stunt seven years ago. Has that really changed?

With the divisions in British society arguably more obvious and more painful than ever, at a time of peak schism between Britain and the rest of the world, this year’s boat race could well become a lightning rod for protest.

Or, just as equally, it will go off without incident and barely make a ripple in the public conscious. I’d argue, having attended in the last couple of years, that the boat race is a cultural event more than a sporting one. A society event of champagne-coiffing and collegiate ties more than one where the focus is athletic excellence.

My world is sport, and for us it won’t even be the biggest sporting event of the day. Should Trenton Oldfield’s spirit live on, there’s a chance it’s a bigger news event than anything else.

Yours,

Ed Malyon​

Sports editor