Ten years since their last win on the Championship Course there were hoots and cheers of relief and delight as Oxford brought an end to a bruising Boat Race drought. Cambridge had won the last eight editions; president Gemma King, by far the most experienced rower of either side, had won five of her six races on this course.

The Dark Blues faced a forbidding task but even throughout the years of those chastening defeats they were beginning to rebuild. And there was even more on the line this year: for Annie Anezakis, this was her last chance before graduating from her medicine postgrad, after being on the losing side on three occasions. For Olympic bronze medallist and president Heidi Long, this was a last shot at another lifelong dream before completing her master’s in September, powered by the grief of losing her father Keith – an endless champion of her rowing career – to pancreatic cancer in 2023.

Inevitably cycles come to an end; tides turn. Cambridge were bidding for a ninth straight win but their pursuit of yet more glory came to an end on a classic April day, grey with the hovering threat of downpour, on a choppy course more akin to rowing on the sea.

The Boat Race is simultaneously unlike any other sporting event and exactly the same. Maybe there’s an element of masochism from the spectators, watching people suffer on the water for 20 minutes; maybe it’s the glimpse into a completely alien world, but there is a buzz around this that endures year after year. And it has all the ingredients of a classic sporting contest: tribal loyalty, skullduggery and gamesmanship, and plenty of people just there to get hammered.

As the clocked ticked down to the 2.21pm start time (designed to take advantage of the incoming tide) the banks of the Thames were lined with gilet-clad, Chelsea boot-wearing punters, drawn to the sizzle of barbecues outside the line of rowing clubs along this stretch of the river. Many seemed to have taken a side – there was significantly more light blue, or more accurately perhaps mint green, than dark blue – and a ferry was repurposed as a University of Cambridge party boat.

But although the Light Blues were overwhelming favourites in the men’s race, that party boat looked premature when Oxford got off to a lightning-quick start in the women’s. From the vantage point of the media boat, following behind, it’s hard to actually see when they set off – but the roar of the crowd, covering every square inch of space along Putney and along both banks, made it obvious.

There were jubilant scenes as Oxford broke a run of eight straight defeats (Getty Images)

Oxford pulled rhythmically away; long before Hammersmith Bridge there was clear water between the two boats. Oxford’s history of defeats could have worked against them, but for this crew it held no weight.

Shortly before Chiswick Eyot Cambridge cox Matt Moran made the call to swerve sharply left, aiming for the calmer water along the Surrey bank. Louis Corrigan followed suit to nullify any tactical advantage, and reacted again when Moran swung well to the right after Barnes Bridge. But there was simply too much water to make up, and the Dark Blue celebrations started before they even pulled to a halt, two lengths ahead.

Australian Anezakis, last year’s president, and Sarah Marshall finally broke their duck at the fourth attempt; Long led the celebrations, after a brief pause to be sick into the Tideway from those agonising efforts; Lilli Freischem got one over little sister Mia in the first-ever battle of siblings in different boats.

Anezakis said: “At the end of last year’s race, I said we’re just gonna get stronger and stronger every year, and we’ve shown that today. I think what rowing’s taught me is that hard work, resilience and determination always pay off if you just put in every day, you’ll always get the reward in the end, and it’s taken a while, but I’m just really satisfied that I’ve had the result that I’ve been after.”

Conditions were rough and choppy for both races (Getty Images)

Coach Allan French, who was brought onboard in 2024 and is credited for turning his squad into contenders again, echoed her thoughts. He said: “We talk about resilience in whatever you do, resilience to come back and do it again. For Annie and Sarah to come back, Annie’s a medical student who’s on placement overnight half the time. It’s not easy. It is a challenge. I firmly believe, win or lose, it’s a worthwhile challenge.

“It’s about coming back and believing that no, we can turn this around, we’ve got to follow the process, we’ve got to enjoy it. There’s no shortcuts in rowing. You have to just do the grind. And I think they’ve done that, and they’ve done it with a big smile on their face as well.”

An emotional Long said: “It was the nine of us in the boat today, and Allan, and I wouldn’t have done it with anyone else. It was just incredible, every single stroke this year, for the whole of this year.”

There was more to cheer about for the Dark Blues as their men’s squad – widely expected to be utterly trounced – made it a genuine fight against a Cambridge side unbeaten this year.

Coxed by Tobias Bernard, who grew up racing on the Tideway and knew the river inside out, Oxford went for an aggressive strategy, clinging close to the Cambridge boat, and were repeatedly warned by umpire Ciaran Hayes to move further to the Surrey side.

Vast crowds cheered on both races (Getty Images)

The Light Blues eventually made their superiority felt in brutally rough conditions. But a boat featuring many who only learned to row at their college finished four lengths down against arguably Cambridge’s strongest team in history – a better result than last year’s boat, who came home five and a half lengths down despite being led by an Olympic champion and stacked with elite internationals.

Cambridge bow Simon Hatcher said: “The conditions tend to make equals of us all, and a lot can happen, a lot that’s unexpected when the conditions rear up like that. Whether the margin would have held on a flatter day is, you will never know. I mentioned before that I would like to win by the curvature of the Earth, and while we might not have won by the curvature of the Earth today, we got the bow ahead, and I think that’s the most important thing.

“[The conditions were] brutal, you’re blown to a halt essentially by the wind, the wake comes down. It’s really hard to dial in on these technical focuses that we talk about all year, so you really just have to take it one stroke at a time.”

The American added: “It’s just the greatest feeling in the world. You put in so much time into a campaign like this and you really become brothers with every person in your boat and every person in the club, and to deliver like that and to be a part of history, it’s everything you hope for.”

As the Boat Race nears two historic anniversaries – a century of women’s racing in 2027, two centuries of men’s in 2029 – this felt another high water mark for the race. Anezakis was momentarily put off by getting English sparkling wine under her contact lens during the trophy celebrations – but there was no dampening the spirits as a decade of Cambridge dominance came to an end.