Harvard Rowers Battle in England

Although the Oxford and Cambridge rowing teams may be called the Blues, this year their hue held a distinct tinge of Crimson.

And whichever British university went home triumphant from the 153rd Boat Race on the river Thames a couple of weeks ago, with graduates rowing for both sides, Harvard was going to come out a victor.

Kip McDaniel ’04 sat in the bow of Cambridge’s Light Blues, who eventually carried the day in 17:49 and with a one-and-a-quarter-length lead, while Adam Kosmicki ’06 and William ‘Brodie’ Buckland ’06 were two-seat and six-seat respectively of the Dark Blues.

“I think it’s a testament to Harvard that there are that many rowers in the race,” McDaniel said. “It’s the most represented school there—apart from Oxford and Cambridge, of course.”

The annual Oxford-Cambridge boat race is one of the most anticipated and contested rowing events of the year, watched by millions the world over, both from the banks of the Thames and on TV.

The four-and-a-quarter-mile stretch of river is the second-longest competitive course in the world, a distance that many oarsmen from U.S. colleges are not used to, compared with the 2K races that are most common here.

Members of Harvard’s rowing program, though, have an advantage, McDaniel pointed out, because they have experienced the yearly four-mile Harvard-Yale contest.

“I think that’s a huge reason Harvard people perform well at these schools,” he said.

It is a different experience for McDaniel to be rowing on the opposite side to his erstwhile Crimson teammates, but a fun one, he said. Competing against Kosmicki in particular, who stroked Harvard’s varsity eight after his own tenure in stroke seat finished, he mentioned, added an extra, friendly incentive to win as well.

“The rowing class of ’04 was very tight,” he said, “so there was a lot of good-natured ribbing about how I might lose to Kosmo.”

“My thought was; I cannot lose to these guys or else all my old teammates will make fun of me!”

Buckland, who rowed behind Kosmicki during their junior year, in the boat that won the national championships, said that it was “just really cool to have him here.”

He mentioned that in the run-up to the race he had heard from the Harvard coaches and old teammates and roommates as well, and that it was “really nice to have that support.”

On race-day, Cambridge was the strong favorite, and no ‘Light’ Blues in reality, weighing in as the second-heaviest boat in the history of the race at 785.6kg, 34.8kg heavier than the Dark Blues.

But Oxford took an early lead, throwing spectators who had hoped for a Cambridge walkover, and a break to the last two years of Dark Blue dominance, into throes of anxiety.

However, round the Surrey bend, the experience and talent in the Cambridge boat soon began to show, with its five returning Blues, two German world champions, and two British Olympians. They got into their rhythm and, having closed the gap, pushed out ahead once in the straight again.

“We kept level with them, which meant we were going faster, as we were in the outside lane,” McDaniel said. “Then we just went past them and went a length up, and getting a length up is important as then your cox has control of the steering.”

“It was basically a war of attrition for 10 minutes, then we got a length up and that was the deciding moment,” he said. “They gambled [to get ahead] and they failed and we just sort of waited them out.”

“It was obviously a huge relief to win,” he added. “A lot of us lost the year before so it was good to know both ends of the spectrum.”

McDaniel also commended the Oxford boat for its performance, and mentioned how hard it is to compete in such a limelight, which “rowers aren’t used to.”

“I lost last year, and I know how devastating it is,” he said. “So I just told Adam that they rowed an excellent race, and they should be proud of what they did, it took a lot of guts.”

Buckland said that, although a loss obviously wasn’t what they had wanted, in the circumstances the Dark Blues had put up a strong performance.

“It wasn’t a good feeling when we were last,” he said, “but at the end of the day we worked hard and they had a bit more talent in the boat, to be honest.”

He added that it was particularly impressive, considering that superior talent, how long the Oxford boat had held its own against it and threatened Cambridge’s success.

“You could consider it a moral victory, but it’s not the same as victory in fact,” he said.

Kosmicki was not available because he is doing his final exams at the moment, but Buckland said that he was permitted to say on his teammate’s behalf that “rowing at Oxford is deadly”—in a good way.

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.