Susan Brown will become on April 4 the first woman to compete in the Boat Race. Her selection as Oxford's coxswain was announced yesterday when, in all good humour, the Cambridge University Boat Club president, James Palmer, agreed to modify his challenge. Palmer's challenge was for Oxford to provide "nine good men and true from Oxford University" to row against Cambridge. The Oxford president, Chris Mahoney, accepted the gauntlet on condition that the challenge was modified to "eight good men and one young woman" and Boat Race history was made.
Miss Brown, a 22-year-old third-year undergraduate of biochemistry at Wadham College and hailing from Honiton, Devon, took yesterday's blaze of publicity in her stride. She was asked what it was like breaking into totally male territory? "The question doesn't arise", she said. "I am not a feminist." Indeed not, but when she was invited to the stage at yesterday's press conference, the Oxford and Cambridge presidents instinctively leapt to their feet.
She has been selected on merit from more than 30 men candidates for the Oxford coxswains seat. The crew like her and she coxed Oxford University to victory in last year's women's boat race and the British women's coxed four in the Olympic regatta. She has been in the sport for only three years and her ability as a Tideway coxswain on the difficult Putney to Mortlake course is still to be judged. She was in the ascendancy when her last competitor, Adrian Rossiter, abandoned rowing to help steer a new political vehicle and work with the Council for Social Democracy.
Miss Brown is 5ft 3in and told me yesterday she aims to weigh in at around 6st 8lb on Boat Race day (the lightest coxswains in the Boat Race were Massey (Oxford) in 1939 and Archer (Cambridge) in 1862 at 5st 2lb apiece). Oxford will surely have the advantage over their opponents of carrying a coxswain well over a stone lighter, unless Cambridge have something up their sleeves.
She is certainly the quietest coxswain I have heard for many a year and it is at first difficult to imagine how she can command eight beefy men. Fortunately the Oxford crew is mature and experienced and has two former presidents on board, with Rankov selected for his fourth Boat Race. I think Miss Brown's personality could well be described as a "Dr Jekyll and Miss Hyde".
This quiet Devon lass on the bank suddenly transforms into a tough and aggressive competitor when afloat. "I don't need to shout at them", she told the press yesterday. "I just talk persuasively into the loudspeaker system. I do not intend to swear either to get the best out of them." Watching her steer last weekend on the Tideway, I know she can be bloody-minded if necessary.
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