From Stockport council estate to the Boat Race
OXFORD POWERHOUSE BRIDGES TWO WORLDS
JOSH BUGAJSKI tells a tale that goes some way to illustrating how strongly the oarsmen of Oxford feel about their traditions.
It concerns the formation of their reserve team several decades ago and the creation of another group under the same name many years later.
As far as Oxford see it, their second boat was called Isis first and that is the end of the matter — no changes, no rowing back. Tradition.
‘Apparently one of the guys’ girlfriends was wearing the Isis crew top in an airport a while back,’ said Bugajski, the 6ft 4in, 99kg powerhouse of Oxford’s first team. ‘She was politely asked to remove it.
‘It’s all a bit awkward, as I’m sure you can imagine. But the Oxford second boat is named after the river and it has had the name for years and years. It won’t change because history is important. Anyway, with luck the other Isis will be gone in the near future.’
Tradition and going the distance. It matters.
And yet the rower who recalled the episode has followed a road to Sunday’s Boat Race that is less than typical. For all the stereotypes attached to this 4.2-mile duel and the rowers of Oxford and Cambridge who contest it, Bugajski, 26, is an athlete and cancer researcher who disproves a few theories, including his own.
The only privilege in his Stockport upbringing, in his own words, was ‘having an amazing mum’. It was his mother, Pat, who singlehandedly raised Josh and his psychedelic rock musician brother after his father left when he was seven. Finances were desperately hard, so were the bullies, and Pat’s luck with illness was harder still.
‘It wasn’t an easy upbringing,’ he said. ‘We grew up on the edge of a council estate and we had big financial struggles.
‘When my father went he left a very large financial burden on my mother. She has always been brilliant and dug us out of the hole, but we struggled a long time and it was a tough area.
‘I actually had to move school when I was younger. I was going to this primary school where it was quite rough and I was a kid with asthma so I was getting bullied. Eventually my mum came to the rescue and got me to a different school. It was probably different to a lot of rowers.’
Rowing didn’t become part of Bugajski’s life until he tried it for the first time when studying pharmacy at Cardiff University, aged 20. With his huge frame he rapidly broke records, despite major turmoil at home.
‘My mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer,’ he said. ‘She thought she had gained weight but it was a tumour the size of a football. She had it removed but there were several complications for a couple of years. Then she was diagnosed again, this time with breast cancer.’
That second diagnosis was in 2015, shortly after Bugajski arrived at Oxford to study for his masters in oncology.
‘She came through it, thankfully she is clear now,’ he said. ‘What she has done makes what I do now look very, very, very easy.’
In that context, he may be right. By any other, his two fields of interest demand an extraordinary workload.
THE
Corinthian appearance of the Boat Race has long been undermined by the recruitment of international- grade rowers from around the world, but Bugajski is effectively juggling two serious, full-time jobs.
‘ On the study front, it is probably about 36 to 40 hours a week of experimenting and research,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty normal that I’ll be working until midnight and then be up very early on the water. The training and logistics probably account for another 40 hours or so a week.’
The two elements dovetail nicely for a race sponsored by Cancer Research. It will be Bugajski’s second attempt, having been part of Oxford’s beaten crew last year. ‘When I started rowing at Cardiff I did have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about competing against public school boys and beating them,’ he said.
‘I really relished and enjoyed that. But coming to Oxford has been a real education. People I might have thought of as snobby are actually very humble.
‘The great equaliser is rowing — it doesn’t matter what school you went to or how rich your parents are. If you are faster, you’re in the boat. And now it is just about beating Cambridge.’
For that, Oxford are marginal favourites. From there, Bugajski’s aim would be to join Matthew Pinsent among the Oxford alumni who competed at the Olympics.
‘I guess it’s a tradition,’ he said. And one that doesn’t typically alert airport security.