Do I detect an anti-elitist sentiment on this thread? It's not all toff-toff jolly ho at Oxbridge. Internet seems to suggest 57% of students from state schools at Oxford, about 66% at Cambridge. What you do tend to get, regardless of where they were educated, is the brightest and best educated students. Even public school children aren't all toff-toff now, what with the meritocracy. I wonder how many people on this forum have paid for private education for their kids? I can see that not going to Oxbridge may seem like the first "great exclusion" in life for some people, but there's nothing like going there to see just to what extent the clichés are true or false. I was always a bit interested in the Boat Race, having grown up near Oxford where the old man worked in the 70s. I supported Oxford of course - it seemed that Cambridge always won. Then when I went to Cambridge, Oxford started a major winning streak. I remember being in a packed college bar when the Cambridge boat front-ended a barge, broke in two and sank. We all felt very elitist then...
Tbh (for me) its not the Oxbridge thing, sure any one with kids would love theirs to go there, its the fact its televised! Rowing is a toff activity (he he), in that most amateur sports always have been when done at a world level. Can your average working 'student' afford to take so much time out to get to the levels needed to compete? Only with backing from family, likley middle class as a minimimum (genralising obviousy) could even thinkof affording to supporttheir children thru not omly he Oxbridge experience but the extra curricular needed. Rugby was the same. Same with equine sports at the top. but actually its mostly that its more boring than paint dryong and givem top billing...yet F1 and Moto GP are shoved off to god knows when it suits
Have to admit that I've never seen bike racing as a particularly toff activity and I bet it costs a lot more to support your kids to do it than rowing. Horses have traditionally been middle/upper class, but then again, the girl who won the gold for GB in the dressage at the last Olympics didn't seem to be from a privileged background (from what you could tell). The Boat Race monopolises one channel on the box for a couple of hours a year. How serious is that? Whereas The Voice or X Factor....
Given that rowing in eights is all about sheer muscle - no need for quick reactions, fine judgement, balance, or elaborate technique - it is curious that it appeals mainly to highly intelligent, educated, sophisticated people. Wonder why that is?
To the outsider, that would seem to be the case, but it appears that is not the whole story. There is technique involved apparently. That is why some people are outstanding rowers, rather than just being the most powerful, fit men in the world. Would Chris Hoyle make the Boat Race boat? Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. You could level the same charge at cyclists. Isn't it purely simply about being very fit? Maybe there is a bit more to it than that. I never rowed. When they told me you had to be on a freezing Cam at 6am in the winter, I thought "bugger that for a game of soldiers". I quite regret it now. I expect it would have been good fun and made me fit.
