The scene is now set for The 153rd Boat Race, sponsored by Xchanging and taking place on Saturday (7 April) at 4.30pm. Cambridge lead the series overall by 78-73 with one dead-heat yet Oxford have won four from the last five Races including last year’s contest.

Cambridge have been declared the pre-Race “on-paper favourites” because of their five returning Blues to Oxford’s one but this event is truly compelling because of the potential vagaries of the course and the weather as well as its capacity to surprise and because there is no prize for second place.

Perhaps the most important ingredient is the knack of “getting it right on the day” because, as Cambridge coach Duncan Holland said recently: “The Tideway is an unforgiving place”. He was referring to the four and a quarter-mile tidal stretch of The Thames from Putney to Mortlake on which the Boat Race is raced.

Twelve months ago the river was most definitely unforgiving with a strong, gusting wind and a wall of waves facing the crews as they turned the bend at Hammersmith. Oxford, painted before The Race as “underdogs”, and racing on the Surrey side of the river, pulled out their street-fighting characteristics and won against the bookies’ odds.

Their experienced coach Sean Bowden has a reputation for creating crews who know how to compete when it matters. Oxford President Robin Ejsmond Frey, a theology student, said in a recent newspaper interview: “Last year we were billed as underdogs and ended up winning and, not surprisingly, we are underdogs again. They’re a very classy squad but it’s what drives our training”.

His counterpart Tom James, in the final year of his undergraduate degree in engineering and a Great Britain Olympian and world championships medal winner, will be competing in his fourth Boat Race on Saturday with three losses so far. He is determined to put that straight with a win in 2007. “There’s a lot of experience in the crew, so they don’t really need a pep talk on the day. They’ll just get on with the job”, he said. “The crew has a common cause and a common purpose,” he added. “There are no heats, semi-finals, there’s just one chance to get it right.”

His Cambridge squad has seized every opportunity to race on the Tideway recently, including a winning run-out last Saturday in the Head of the River Race – the first time that Cambridge have competed in this event since 1991.

Oxford coach Sean Bowden has remained faithful to the men he announced on March 12th whilst Holland has switched Rebecca Dowbiggin, a post-graduate student who was brought up in Cambridge, into his Blue Boat in favour of American Russell Glenn, who had already won a boxing Blue this year.

Holland will also be able to draw on the experience of returning Blues including James and his fellow GB Olympian Kieran West, a Postgraduate student and former Cambridge President, whilst his stern pair features world champions Thorsten Engelmann at stroke and Sebastian Schulte in the no.7 seat. They were part of the German eight who won the 2006 World Championships title and were in the Light Blue boat in 2006.

Engelmann weighed-in on Tuesday of Race Week at 110.8 kg (15st 11lbs and four ounces), making him the heaviest oarsman of all time. The 2007 Cambridge crew weigh15st 6lbs and eight ounces on average – that’s just a few ounces per man shy of Oxford’s record average weight per man in 2005.

Meanwhile Sean Bowden, the Head Coach at Oxford, has only one returning Blue - in Ejsmond Frey- but can rely on the considerable international experience of Ante Kusurin, a Croatian masters student, alongside Michal Plotkowiak, a biomedical engineering student, who, barring injury and illness on April 7th, should become the first Pole to contest The Race.

Bowden, who has selected Oxford’s Nick Brodie to cox the Blue Boat despite dropping him just four weeks out from last year’s Race, also has some American fire-power in law student and US world championships team member William “Brodie” Buckland as well as world junior level rower Adam Kosmicki.

Bowden has, in his own words, “had plenty to do” this year in shaping a new crew from fresh beginnings. His enthusiasm for the project is still strong, though, after 12 previous races. “The need to develop relationships with the athletes, to teach and to work with such motivated and positive individuals is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my job”, he said recently.

Holland, meanwhile, sees The Boat Race, raced over a gruelling four and a quarter-mile course from Putney to Mortlake on a tidal stretch of the Thames, as the epitome of sportsmanship: “I particularly like working at club level where there are still the qualities of sportsmanship and team-work which underline where I’ve come from”, he said.

And, having tasted debut defeat last year in a Race undertaken in wild and windy conditions, Holland is wary of predictions: “That’s the whole thing. Sport is a series of contests which are uncertain by their nature. I’m confident that we will perform well, but is that enough to win? We’ll see”.

Race sponsors Xchanging, a business services processing company, also sees the contest as one in which each crew, according to David Andrews, Chief Executive Officer, “needs to draw on fitness, tenacity and teamwork to gain any precious advantage of their opponents that they can.

“Each crew must also be prepared for all the uncertainty that the elements may throw at them. It is truly the best crew on the day that overcomes all these pressures. Xchanging considers itself privileged to be able to support this tough international sporting event as it strives for similar success in the business world”, he said.

Race organisers, led by Chairman Giles Vardey and London Representative, Howard Jacobs, are hoping for better weather conditions than the squally winds which battered the two eights a year ago. They would also relish the kind of close finishes which The Race enjoyed in 2002 and 2003 - with Oxford winning by just one foot in the latter year.

This year’s Race will be broadcast live on ITV Sport, who achieved an audience of over 7 million in 2006, and LBC and will be available live in the USA for the first time through a deal brokered with ESPN. Fans of The Race will also be able to receive text updates, news and background through their mobile phone. Details of this service are available through www.theboatrace.org

250,000 spectators traditionally line the banks of the Thames to enjoy this iconic event which is one of the Capital’s best “free shows”.

CREW LISTS:

CAMBRIDGE

BLUE BOAT

Kristopher McDaniel, St Edmund’s

Dan O’Shaughnessy, St Edmund’s

Peter Champion, St Edmund’s

Jacob (Jake) Cornelius, Emmanuel

Tom James, Trinity Hall

Kieran West, Pembroke

Sebastian Schulte, Gonville & Caius

Thorsten Engelmann, St Edmund’s

Rebecca Dowbiggin, Emmanuel

GOLDIE

Alastair MacLeod, St Catharine’s

Doug Perrin, Trinity Hall

Colin Scott, Trinity Hall

Tobias Garnettm, Trinity

Oliver de Groot, Gonville & Caius

Johannes Kromdijk, Clare College

Don Wyper, St Edmund’s

David Billings, Gonville & Caius

Russell Glenn, Darwin

OXFORD

BLUE BOAT

Michal Plotkowiak, Brasenose

Adam Kosmicki, Oriel

Andrew Wright, St Edmund Hall

Magnus Fleming, Worcester

Robin Ejsmond-Frey, Oriel

William’Brodie’ Buckland, Jesus

Terence Kooyker, Keble

Ante Kusurin, St Catherine’s

Nicholas Brodie, St Catherine’s

ISIS

Paul Kelly, Wolfson

George Hilton, New

Anthony Mullin, St Catherine’s

Matthew Brown, Keble

Nicholas Marriott, University

Lucas Dalglish, Keble

Richard Chambers, Kellogg

David Knezevic, Balliol

Philip Clausen-Thue, Oriel

Both crews listed: Bow, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Stroke, Cox with athlete name and college