• Cambridge overturn odds to win by length and a half
• Light Blues deny Oxford a third successive victory

In one of the most tenacious displays of rowing in recent Boat Race history, Cambridge came from behind to beat Oxford by one and a half lengths.

Oxford, who won the toss and chose the Surrey station, forced their way out in front through the Fulham Reach and were a full four seats up by the time the boats passed the Harrods Depository. Cambridge, though, would not be broken and started to pull the deficit around over the Chiswick Reach, pulling away as the boats arrived at Corney Reach.

Oxford moved into the middle of stream as Cambridge pulled away in a vain attempt to compete for the racing line, but in truth Oxford's race had already been lost. They had their opportunity to take a decisive lead over the middle of the race, but could not shrug Cambridge off. Intriguingly, the reserve race had followed an identical pattern, Goldie trailing Isis all the way to the Bandstand before taking a late lead and winning with some ease.

"The whole way through I was thinking: 'We could win it, we could win it, we could win it,'" said the Cambridge cox, Ted Randolph, between breathless swigs from a bottle of champagne, "and then coming into that final three minutes I was like: 'We've won it.' I told the guys: '[Oxford have] blown the doors off, they've got nothing left in the tank, we've won it.' My guys had the power and we just turned it on and rowed away. We knew we could do it, all the way down we knew we could do it if we just kept moving."

Given that Cambridge were the bookmaker's underdogs, the victory was all the sweeter, especially as several of the crew had, like Randolph, stuck £25 on themselves to upset the odds.

Not that Chris Nilsson, the Cambridge coach, was having any of that. "I don't know where [the bookmakers] get their information from and I never pay any attention to them. I think anyone who knew anything about rowing knew we had two evenly matched crews."

Immediately after the race, a tearful Nilsson said: "I don't think I have ever felt so emotional, this was so, so special. They rowed so well. Oxford threw everything at them, but the boys would not let them go. They just would not let them go. It was a wonderful win and a wonderful race by both teams. The strokeman Fred Gill did a wonderful job and so did Ted, the cox."

Sir Steven Redgrave concurred. "All credit to Oxford for sticking in there at the end, but all the way from the bend on there was only going to be one winner. It just took Cambridge a little while before they believed it was going to happen."