The cancellation of the Fuller’s Head of the River Fours race on Saturday due to adverse weather conditions meant that the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race squads had to make alternative arrangements for racing over the weekend.

As they did so, the coaches reminded squad members that were conditions to be the same on the Thames next April - with strong gusts of southerly wind below Hammersmith creating bad conditions in particular - then the 2010 Boat Race, sponsored by Xchanging, would still go ahead.

Cambridge stayed in London and raced the same four boats as planned for the Fours Head over the Boat Race course from Putney to Mortlake on Sunday. “It was very disappointing that the race was called off, because all the guys were geared up to race for the first time and make their mark in the squad,” said Light Blue Chief Coach, Chris Nilsson. “But, we learned a lot from the experience on Sunday and the coxes especially learnt a lot about preparing the crews.”

Oxford, on the other hand, returned home on Saturday and went to work at Wallingford the following morning. Commenting on missing out on the Fours Head, Oxford Chief Coach Sean Bowden said: “It’s not a major blow, but it’s always useful to get a rough impression of speed in relation to the opposition and international rowers. I guess it now puts pressure on us to make a good assessment of where we are at this stage of our training programme.”

Both Boat Race squads may now spend more days in London ahead of the Trial Eights to enable crews to gain more experience of the demanding Tideway course.

The 2010 Boat Race, sponsored by Xchanging - the fast-growing international pure-play business processing company - will be staged on Saturday, 3 April at 16:30. The Race, the 156th Boat Race, will be screened live on BBC 1. This year’s winners Oxford will be attempting to reduce the victory margin to just three (currently 79 Cambridge wins to Oxford’s 75).