Cambridge will race leading British club, Leander, this Saturday on the Thames in the lead up to the 2006 Boat Race which takes place on April 2nd and is sponsored by Xchanging.

Leander will field a crew which includes world and Olympic Champion Steve Williams in the stroke seat with current world champions Alex Partridge and Peter Reed in the seven and fifth seats respectively.

Reed, of course, was part of Oxford’s winning Boat Race crew last year.

Former world silver medallist Toby Garbett will be at bow in a Leander line-up which may give Cambridge a stiffer test than the Molesey crew of two weeks before.

Oxford, meanwhile, take on an Imperial College eight on Sunday. This is packed with Italian internationals and should, once more, prove a testing pre-Race work-out.

CREW LISTS

SATURDAY 18 March

15.00 Cambridge "Blue" Boat v Leander

Cambridge

Stroke: Kip McDaniel

Tom James

Kieran West

Sebastian Schulte

Thorsten Engelmann

Sebastian Thormann

Tom Edwards

Luke Walton

Cox: Peter Rudge

Leander

Bow Toby Garbett

2 Marcus Bateman

3 Matthew Langridge

4 Steve Rowbotham

5 Peter Reed

6 Rick Egington

7 Alex Partridge

Stroke Steve Williams

Cox Steph Richards

Sunday 19 March

15.00 Isis v Polish eight

Cox: Nick Brodie

Andrew Brennan

Phillip (Phil) Killicoat

Terence Reece Kooyker

Bruce Magee

Jonathan (Jonny) Mathews

Michiel Munneke

Dominic Burke

Andrew Wright

Jaroslaw Bielaszewski (stroke)

Karol Sloma,

Marcin Sarnowski,

Artur Januszek

Piotr Lepczak

Michal Wyrwal,

Dariusz Radosz,

Dominik Januszkiewicz,

Rafal Dziekon´ski

cox Natalia Maciukiewicz

coach Andrzej Mazurowicz

15.30 Oxford "Blue" boat v an Imperial College eight

Oxford

Cox: Sebastian (Seb) Pearce

Paul Daniels

Robin Esjmond-Frey

Tom Parker

Bastien Ripoll

James (Jamie) Schroeder

Colin Smith

Jacob (Jake) Wetzel

Barney Williams

Imperial

Cox: Abbie Stephenson.

Carlo Mornati

Leonardo Raffaello

Dario Dentale

Mario Palmisano

Elia Luini

Pierpaolo Frattini

Niccolo Mornati

Lorenzo Porzio-Bow.