Old Man River in the medals again
James Cracknell, the double-olympic gold medallist and six-time world champion rower, shows off his medal after he won the Boat Race on the Thames yesterday as part of the Cambridge University crew, making him the oldest race winner at the age of 46.
JAMES CRACKNELL has become the oldest Boat Race champion, with his team-mates revealing that they refer to him as “Uncle James”.
Aged 46, the double-olympic gold medallist and six-time world champion was part of Cambridge University’s crew as they rowed to victory at the 165th Boat Race.
Cracknell, who is studying for an Mphil in human evolution at Peterhouse College, is also the most decorated man to row in the annual contest against Oxford. “I haven’t felt like this for 20 years,” he said afterwards, adding that the victory “topped everything” he has achieved in sport.
Cracknell has previously competed in the Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race, which involved rowing across the Atlantic and trekking across the Arabian Desert. He has also become a successful runner and was the highest placed Briton ever in the Marathon des Sables in 2010 and finished the London Marathon in 2:43:12 in 2017.
At more than twice the age of some of his team-mates – the youngest was 19-year-old Callum Sullivan – he has been nicknamed “Uncle James”.
Dara Alizadeh, president of Cambridge University’s boat club, described Cracknell during training as “very intense, relentless…he’s pretty savage”.
But the 25-year-old said told the BBC that “even at his age, he fits right in, he always was one of the guys”.
Cracknell is eight years older than the previous record holder, Andy Probert, who coxed Cambridge in 1992. In the past, other older athletes have tried out for the Boat Race, including rugby player Andy Ripley, who missed getting a place in 1998, aged 50.
It emerged last month that Cracknell had split from his wife of 17 years, the TV presenter Beverley Turner, with whom he has three children.
Yesterday, Turner tweeted to praise Cracknell on a “fantastic performance”, writing: “Congratulations on [a] hard won victory”.
Speaking in Times2 Turner revealed she watched yesterday’s race at a friend’s house with the children. She said: “Returning to university to study at 46 and getting into a boat alongside blokes 25 years younger may have been an absolute dereliction of parenting and marital duty, but even I can admit that it’s nothing short of super-bloody-human.”
She added: “I was sure he would fail. It was ludicrous to think he could regain the strength and stamina required...but if there is one thing that has not changed since 2010 it’s James’s determination to prove people wrong.” The couple have been candid about the difficulties they have faced since 2010, when Cracknell was hit from behind by a lorry’s wing mirror during a cycle ride across the US. The damage to his brain was life-changing, slowing his speech and leaving him with an irascible temper. When he moved to Cambridge last September, Turner remained at their London home.
Asked about the split, Cracknell said the demands of his Mphil and training for the race preoccupied him but life will be “hard” and “empty” after the race.
Cambridge pulled ahead early and despite a clash of oars, they succeeded in holding off a late Oxford surge, winning in 16 minutes, 57 seconds. Cambridge also won the women’s race.
SIR – Congratulations on the fine obituary (April 6) of Anthony Churchill.
He was Ted Heath’s first navigator. Peter Nicholson, later Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, took over from him and I navigated the boat Morning Cloud for Heath in 1979 and 1980.
We went through the great Fastnet storm of 1979 (which drowned 19 crewmen) and managed to finish in Plymouth, battered but still racing.
At one stage Heath suffered a deep gash in his calf, which I did my best to sew up. My late father-in-law, a noted surgeon, said it was the worst bit of sewing he’d ever seen. I reminded him that he didn’t have to operate under showers of salt water and the violent motion of his operating theatre.
These days, being retired, I content myself with skippering the passenger boats on the Wey and Arun Canal. David Arnold
Horsham, West Sussex