page_title: The Boat Races 2015
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: The Boat Races 2015 / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: The BNY Mellon Boat Race 2015 - Boris Rankov, umpire of the men main race.
context_page_description: The 2015 Boat Races took place on 11 April 2015. Held annually, The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between male crews from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge along a 4.2-mile tidal stretch of the River Thames in south-west London. For the first time in the history of the event, the men's, women's and both reserves' races were all held on the Tideway; in the men's reserve race, Cambridge's Goldie faced Oxford's Isis after the women's race, as a preliminary to the main men's race, while the women's reserve race, held the day before, saw Oxford's Osiris race against Cambridge's Blondie.
  Oxford's women won the first running of the Women's Boat Race on the Tideway, and the 70th overall, by six and a half lengths, to take the overall record in the event to 41–29 in Cambridge's favour. Oxford also won the men's reserve race, with Isis winning by three lengths. In the main men's race, umpired by the six-time Blue Boris Rankov, Oxford won by six and a half lengths in a time of 17 minutes 34 seconds, taking the overall record in the event to 81–79 in Cambridge's favour.
context_section_description: The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing competition between the University of Oxford (sometimes referred to as the "Dark Blues") and the University of Cambridge (sometimes referred to as the "Light Blues"). First held in 1829, the race takes place on the 4.2-mile (6.8 km) Championship Course, between Putney and Mortlake on the River Thames in south-west London. The rivalry is a major point of honour between the two universities; it is followed throughout the United Kingdom and broadcast worldwide. Oxford went into the race as champions, having won the 2014 race by a margin of eleven lengths, but Cambridge led overall with 81 victories to Oxford's 78 (excluding the "dead heat to Oxford by five feet" of 1877).
  It was the first time in the history of The Boat Race that the three main races, the men's, women's and men's reserves', were held on the same day and on the same course along the Tideway. Prior to this year, the women's race which first took place in 1927, was usually held at the Henley Boat Races along the 2,000-metre (2,200 yd) course.  However, on at least two occasions in the interwar period, the women competed on the Thames between Chiswick and Kew. Oxford went into the race as reigning champions, having won the 2014 race by four lengths, with Cambridge leading 41–28 overall. For the third year, the men's race was sponsored by BNY Mellon while the women's race saw BNY Mellon's subsidiary Newton Investment Management as sponsors. It was part of the sponsorship deal with Newton Investment Management that mandated the women's race to be rowed on the same course and with the same funding as the men's race. According to their chief executive, Helena Morrissey, the company "didn't just want a name on a shirt; [it] wanted to do something meaningful". The women's race was scheduled to take place at 4:50 pm, the men's reserves' race half an hour later and the men's race a further half-hour after that at 5:50 pm. The women's reserve race between Cambridge's Blondie and Oxford's Osiris took place on the Tideway for the first time, one day before the main races, at 4:05 pm.
  The television historian and former Oxford rower Dan Snow (who represented the Dark Blues in the 1999, 2000 and 2001 races) said: "Most televised sport is a carnival of misogyny so it is great news that the Boat Race is leading the way in ensuring that women take their rightful place alongside men." The BBC sports broadcaster Eleanor Oldroyd suggested that scheduling the races on the same course and day was "a game-changing move" for female sport, and "now they've achieved equality – same course, same distance, same prize money [sic], same BBC TV coverage, to an expected global audience of 100 million". The television presenter Clare Balding opted to cover the women's race instead of the 2015 Grand National, claiming that the combined rowing event would have a "ripple effect all across society, business and sport".
  The autumn reception was held at the London headquarters of BNY Mellon. As Oxford had won the previous year's race, it was Cambridge's responsibility to offer the traditional challenge to the Dark Blues. To that end, Alexander Leichter and Caroline Reid, presidents of the Cambridge boat clubs, challenged Constantine Louloudis and Anastasia Chitty, their counterparts, who duly accepted. Umpires for the senior races were announced on 4 March: the former Cambridge rower Simon Harris, who represented the Light Blues in the 1982 and 1983 races oversaw the Women's race, while the six-time Oxford Blue Boris Rankov umpired the men's race for the fourth time. Rob Clegg, the umpire of the 2011 race oversaw the men's reserve race while the Olympic bronze medallist Sarah Winckless umpired the women's reserve race.
caption: Boris Rankov, umpire of the men's race
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 60D", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.7 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2015:04:19 22:49:38", "Image Artist": "Wikimedia UK", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "914", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "18378", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/2500", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:04:11 15:45:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:04:11 15:45:04", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "352741/31250", "EXIF ApertureValue": "86797/20000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-2/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "35/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "42", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "42", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1036800/181", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "691200/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": "Wikimedia UK", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "2781424781", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[55, 250, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "00003defd0"}