The women’s Boat Race-winning squad benefited from a caring environment of support rather than the usual macho tropes

While most of the Boat Race coverage discussed polluted water and the heroics of a collapsing student, another beautiful story unfolded on the murky waters of the Thames. A narrative that commentators are not used to describing and cameras cannot zoom in on. It might at first sound an absurd paradox, a sporting oxymoron, a human impossibility: the notion and reality of a caring high-performance culture. But I’ve seen up close how the Cambridge women’s team have been investing in it, and though it can never only be measured and justified in race outcomes, it certainly paid off on Saturday.

Culture can seem vague, difficult to control and slow to develop. Yet it remains a huge performance factor that many teams are only at the beginning of working out how to optimise. It’s so tempting to set goals to increase watts per stroke, weights lifted in the gym and rowing machine scores. But this season, Cambridge women’s chief coach, Paddy Ryan, set a goal to have “care as a guiding principle of everything we do” and embarked on exploring what a caring culture could mean caring for the students, coaches and support staff.

It took a sewage-plagued Boat Race to do it, but people can now see the appalling state of England’s water industry and waterways

Fire up a Chariots of Fire-style theme tune for the speech of the defeated Oxford captain in last Saturday’s Boat Race, beamed edifyingly around the world : “We had a few guys go down pretty badly with E coli ,” declared Lenny Jenkins (the university’s boat club itself says it can’t be that specific on precisely what caused the gut-rot). Having shared a few of the nauseating details, Jenkins concluded: “It would be a lot nicer if there wasn’t as much poo in the water.” Yup, a country that once painted a quarter of the world pink now regrettably advertises itself as mostly brown – encircled by its own effluent and pumping it furiously through its river veins just to be sure. As metaphors go, it is on the nose in all senses.

And so to Thames Water, steward of the river on which that internationally famous race is rowed – a firm that is £18bn in deliriously structured debt , has had to be extensively threatened to spend so much as 30p on infrastructure investment, spent years being used as a cash cow for shareholders, and has pumped human waste into the Greater London area of the river for almost 2,000 hours already this year alone. Despite this rapacious shareholder-facing culture, its current foreign investors have now apparently judged it to be “uninvestable”. Thames Water’s relatively new CEO, Chris Weston, must be struck by that feeling that plagued Tony Soprano. “It’s good to be in something from the ground floor,” the mobster judged. “I came too late for that – I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

When Sian Davies was waiting for spinal surgery, she stayed sane by planning things to look forward to. Most notably, an extraordinary feat of endurance

When she was 61, Sian Davies decided to row across the Atlantic Ocean. In March 2021, the retired sports and leisure manager was one of 12 crew members who set out on the 3,000-mile journey from Tenerife to battle sun, salt and fierce currents. “We would row in three-hour shifts and only sleep for an hour or so every six hours,” she says. “For the first 15 days I was seasick, so I didn’t eat a thing – I was just rowing and collapsing. I went through some pretty dark times.”

But she didn’t give up, and after 42 days on the water, she reached Antigua to become one of only six women in the world over the age of 60 to have rowed across an ocean. “I was exhausted and I was also so proud of myself,” she says. “It was empowering to push the limits at my age and find out just how much I could do.”

• Oxford men’s team ‘had a few guys go down with E coli strain’
• Thames Water under pressure over ‘so much poo in the water’

Organisers of the Boat Race have contacted Oxford to seek further clarity on the cause of the sickness bug that struck down several members of their men’s team.

Cambridge triumphed in the women’s and men’s Blue races on Saturday following an unusually high-profile buildup to the historic event, after River Action UK found dangerously high levels of E coli bacteria on the River Thames course.

Participants in Oxford v Cambridge competition were warned to cover wounds due to risks from E coli-polluted waterway

On a bright, unexpectedly warm afternoon, it would have been easy to assume the crowds that gathered by the Thames yesterday for the 169th Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race were a signal that all remains rosy in the world of rowing and rivercraft.

Couples of all ages stood in the sunshine sipping pints and proseccos, groups waved dark-blue Oxford and light-blue Cambridge flags, and families posed for selfies. All appeared content about the prospects of watching another engrossing competition between the two old rivals – a battle that was eventually won by Cambridge in both the men and women’s races.

• Controversy clouds women’s contest after boats make contact
• Cambridge’s men ease to another dominant victory

Cambridge recorded a dominant double success at the Boat Race in the women’s and the men’s races that contained plenty of drama but ultimately comfortable margins of victory.

The buildup had focused on the scandal surrounding high levels of E coli bacteria detected in the Thames , but once the racing began, the continued dominance from the light blues became the defining feature.

• Cambridge dominate both races to claim victory
• Light blues win double for second year in a row
• Pulling together: Tom Jenkins’ Boat Race photo essay

Oxford were heavy favourites going into the race and we’re seeing why now. The bend is about to come into Cambridge’s favour as we near Hammersmith Bridge.

The teams are coming past Craven Cottage and Oxford look like they are pulling away again and almost breaking clear water.

Sewage scandal has put extra focus on the race but enthusiasm is undimmed with Oxford favourites to end rivals’ dominance

Throughout the Boat Race’s 195-year history, it has been regarded by the rest of the world as one of those peculiar British eccentricities, like Marmite and pantomime, that are best ignored. Not this year.

The New York Times, Fox News, ABC, CNN and numerous other international media have run stories in the buildup to Saturday’s race – although it is what is floating in the Thames, rather than on top of it, that has piqued their interest.

The race along the River Thames between England’s two greatest universities spans 195 years of rivalry and is now one of the world’s oldest and most famous amateur sporting events. Our photographer has been spending time with the Cambridge University Boat Club over the past few months as they prepare for 2024’s races

The idea of a Boat Race between the two universities dates back to 1829, sparked into life by a conversation between Old Harrovian schoolfriends Charles Merivale, a student at the time at St John’s College Cambridge, and Charles Wordsworth who was at Christ Church Oxford. On 12 March that year, following a meeting of the newly formed Cambridge University Boat Club, a letter was sent to Oxford.

The University of Cambridge hereby challenge the University of Oxford to row a match at or near London each in an eight-oar boat during the Easter vacation.

Rough water as the two women’s boats make their way along the River Thames near Putney Embankment during the Cambridge University Boat Race trials.