Former student Martha Birtles in the Boat Race

Former student Martha Birtles (2011-2016) will be rowing for the Oxford University Women’s Boat team in the Oxford/Cambridge Boat Race on Sunday 4th April 2021. Live on BBC.  Do cheer her on! 

This year the training programme has been modified due to the pandemic and during lockdown 2 in November 2020 the students reverted to land-based training with many having rowing machines set up in their student rooms.  From December 2020 the crews could return to water and had to familiarise themselves with the planned closed course at Ely.  Lockdown 3 resulted in more land-based training and after an agreement with British Rowing they were allowed to return to on the water training from the 8th March 2021.  The umpire for this 75th Women's Boat Race will be Judith Packer who studied Engineering at Oxford.