Honours even: Melbourne and Sydney split results in Australian Boat Race

30 Oct 2011
The University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney have shared the honours at the Australian Boat Race following an Oxford v Cambridge style showdown this afternoon on the Yarra River.

The women’s team from the Melbourne University Boat Club took out the Women’s event, finishing comfortably ahead of the Sydney University Boat Club.

The result was reversed in the Men’s event, with Sydney triumphing over Melbourne by just 18 inches in a tightly fought race that saw multiple lead changes across the course.

The two clubs faced off in Men’s Eights and Women’s Eights on a 4.2 km course down the Yarra River, starting at Victoria Dock and finishing outside the iconic Melbourne University Boat Club shed.

Both teams featured some of the cream of Australia’s rowing talent, many of whom are vying for a place on the 2012 Australian Olympic rowing team. Beijing Olympic Silver Medalists’ Cameron McKenzie-McHarg and James Marburg rowed with the Melbourne team, while two-time Australian world champion representative Nick Hudson rowed with Sydney.

In the women’s teams, Alice McNamara and Beijing Olympic rowers Kim Crow, Sarah Heard and Lizzy Patrick rowed for MUBC, while Liz Kell, who as well as rowing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics was the Australian Women’s Double Scull world champion in 2006, rowed with SUBC. MUBC also featured Alice McNamara, winner of the World Cup at Lucerne in 2010 and a winner of the Empire State Building Run Up in 2011.

The Australian Boat Race has become an annual event, held on the Yarra River and Sydney Harbour on alternating years. The rivalry builds on a rich history of rowing competition between Australia’s oldest universities, in the vein and tradition of Oxford and Cambridge established in 1829 on the River Thames.

In the early 1900s, the annual intervarsity boat race for eight oared crews between Australian universities (the original competing universities in those days were Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide) was a major event on the national rowing calendar alongside the various interstate races.

Established in 1859 (MUBC) and 1860 (SUBC), the two clubs are the oldest rowing clubs in Australia and are home to many Olympians and national representatives.