by Sean Bowden, the coach of Oxford University Boat Club, slammed the quality of the water in British rivers and said that the fear of E. coli over the Thames prompted a discussion about whether to continue with the traditional victory ceremony cox-dunking.
Bowden’s comments came the day after the Environment Agency revealed figures about 3.6 million hours of sewage spilled into Britain’s rivers last year.
Specifically on the Thames – where Saturday’s Boat Race will take place – surveys found an alarming average of 2,869 E. coli colony forming units (CFU) per 100ml of water in 16 tests around Hammersmith Bridge. That figure is almost three times the recommended limit.
”It’s a concern,” Bowden said Sports telegraph during the Boat Race development event near the race start line in Putney. “And I’m very happy that the papers are chasing the water companies in this regard. I am right with them. It’s a national disgrace, isn’t it?
“It would be great if the Boat Race would draw attention to it. We are very keen to participate and we recognize that we have a role and a responsibility towards it.
“Surfers Against Sewage and all these wonderful people wanted to bring this to our attention years ago. The amount of time it took to gain traction is concerning. But it feels like those people’s efforts are paying off and we’re getting somewhere. Why would you want to send your kids out there?”
On Tuesday, Boat Race organizers said they had implemented new guidelines that included “guidance on covering open wounds, regular hand washing, a cleaning station at the finish area and highlighting the risks of entering in the water”. (In practice, that big phrase “cleaning station” means showers, which were always available for the athletes to use at the finish line near Chiswick Bridge.)
Rowers and coaches have long been concerned about pollution risks on the Thames, particularly after heavy rain. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Andy Triggs Hodge, who represented Oxford in the 2005 Boat Race, told Sports telegraph: “There were days on the Thames when we would come out of the water with a black slick on the boat.”
“This problem has been around for years,” said Triggs Hodge, who has developed a career in water management since retiring from professional rowing in 2017.
“It’s based on public and private ownership, overseen by politicians from both parties, and has increased the bottom line for many companies. I am pleased that British Rowing and Boat Racing have introduced some guidelines to deal with what we have known for a long time.”
As Bowden recalled, the Thames was far from palatable even in the 1970s, when he rowed there as a boy. “The river is full of fish,” he said. “There are dolphins. You even get the odd whale. But there is clearly a health risk and there are many very simple mitigations that rowers learn very early in the sport that greatly reduce the risk.
“Once in a while someone will get a stomach bug, but they usually bounce back within 24 or 48 hours. It is something that is really important. We obviously don’t want people to get sick.”
So what will happen to the winning trophies in Saturday’s races, which start at 2.46pm for the women and 3.46pm for the men?
“We had races where we threw the lie,” said former Great Britain rower Harry Glenister, who will compete for Oxford this year. “It’s the tradition. But if there’s a health and safety problem I don’t think we’re going to throw it into it because we don’t want to risk that.
“It’s too much of a risk. We support whatever the Rás na Bád is saying about the conditions in the water. Hopefully we will win and then we will decide.”
“It’s a consensual thing,” Cambridge University Boat Club men’s team president Seb Benzecry said. “You don’t throw your shit in if your lie won’t. We didn’t think about the celebration at all. It is detrimental to our process.
“But people are caught up in the moment. We threw our coke in last year, and in 2021, we jumped all in. But Ely had that, so it was our own home water.”
According to Bowden, who has coached Oxford since 1997: “We don’t want to spend hours discussing what we could have done if we had won. But we have to think about it as coaches and I think we can ask the right questions at the right time.
“People swim and do a lot of water sports in the river. And there is very little risk in throwing the cox in the water for about 10 seconds, I think. It is clear that the cox has a say in that. We don’t want to throw someone in if they don’t want to be. That’s the way things are these days.”
