Victoria rower powers Oxford to Boat Race victory over Cambridge

Add Liz Fenje to the distinguished list of Canadian rowers who have won the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.

The 22-year-old from Victoria helped Oxford’s Dark Blues to a four-length victory Sunday over the Light Blues of Cambridge in the Women’s Boat Race.

This weekend, Olympic champion Malcolm Howard and fellow Canadians Tom Watson and Thomas Swartz — who has both Canadian and U.S. citizenship — will try to lead Oxford to victory in the 160th edition of the historic men’s race on the River Thames in London.

The 31-year-old Howard, a six-foot-seven 235-pounder from Victoria, stroked Oxford to victory last year.

The spotlight Sunday was on the women with Fenje’s Oxford crew winning for the sixth time in seven years.

“It was a great race,” Fenje said Monday. “It’s a lot of buildup, there’s a lot of attention on the race. I feel very relieved and happy that it all went well.”

Fenje, who is taking a Master’s degree in history at Oxford, did her undergraduate degree at Stanford where she majored in history and did a minor in political science on a rowing scholarship.

“I feel very lucky to have gone to both,” she said of her two blue-chip universities.

Like Stanford, Oxford requires a “rigorous academic and athletic commitment,” according to Fenje.

“A little hard to be so far from home but I’ve had a really good year,” she said of her Oxford experience.

Her parents flew over to see the weekend race, cheering on their daughter over the two-kilometre, straight course at Henley-on-Thames.

The women’s race was first held in 1927 but did not become a permanent fixture until the mid-60s. It switched to Henley in the ’70s and has been bolstered by proper sponsorship recently.

Next year, it will get an even bigger jolt in the arm when it switches to the same day and course as the men.