Payback for the Boat Race

On April 7th 2012, the 158th annual boat race between crews from the University of Cambridge and our very own crew at the University of Oxford held in London. It's a massive event, arguably one of the biggest and oldest inter-collegiate sporting events in the world (the first edition was held in 1829). 'The race came about because two friends from Harrow School, Charles Wordsworth of Christ Church College, Oxford, and Charles Merrivale of St. John’s, Cambridge, met during the vacation in Cambridge, where Wordsworth’s father was master of Trinity. Wordsworth went rowing on the Cam, and the two school fellows decided to set up a challenge. On February 10 1829 a meeting of CUBC requested Mr Snow of St John’s to write immediately to Mr Staniforth of Christ Church stating ‘that the University of Cambridge hereby challenge the University of Oxford to row a match at or near London, each in an eight-oared boat during the ensuing Easter vacation.' 

We had a couple of MBA students among the Oxford crew and were understandably gutted when Oxford lost the race when one of the rowers had his blade broken after a clash of oars. This was after the race was restarted (with Oxford in the clear lead) after a protester had dived in the water. The defeat (more appropriately, the manner of the defeat) left us seething and provided added motivation for the Oxbridge MBA games to hold a couple of weeks later. Every year, Oxford and Cambridge MBAs face off in a number of events to claim bragging rights for the year. The games were held in Oxford last year, so we had to get up at dawn and make the three hour journey to Cambridge....not that it made much difference to the results though. We won football (5-1), cricket (9 wickets), badminton (9-0), basketball (45-20), Table Tennis (6-1), Tennis doubles (6-0), foosball (2-1), and petanque (11-7), we lost in only one event (cross country) due to a manpower shortfall. 

We retained the plaque (Oxford also won last year's edition)

The basket ball team trying to look mean

SBS United!

It was a good weekend, filled with friendly banter with the guys from Judge. 

On another note, this blog won the clear admit best of blogging awards for 'most entertaining student blog' and best representation of student life. It also came second in the best overall blog category....with that award going to Jeremy Wilson's excellent blog. I remember stumbling upon the best of blogging awards a couple of years ago while doing MBA research, I couldn't have imagined back then that I would also be a recipient. Thanks to all that voted! 

We head to Paris tonight for the biggest sporting event of the MBA year.....the MBAT! Featuring all the top schools across Europe, it promises to be four days of non stop action, networking and partying, limited only by the knowledge that we all have tons of papers to complete right after the tournament....but we'll survive!

May the best team win!