“On this Easter Sunday, the men from Limerick have risen,” said GAA president Jarlath Burns as he handed the league trophy to captain Cian Lynch after his county’s triumph over Cork at the Gaelic Grounds. There ended their wait for national silverware, which dated all the way back to 2023. A breather by anyone’s standards, a famine by Limerick’s.
Lynch saluted his fellow panellists for the hard labour they had put in on the road to this victory. “It’s early in the year yet,” he said, “but we’re back since before December”.
Now, that is, of course, a monumental shift from a group of amateurs with jobs and/or studies to fit into their lives as well, with the championship still to come. But to be honest, next to Felix Crabtree, they’re a bunch of slackers.
Over the last number of years, Crabtree has combined his rowing career with studying for a degree in natural sciences, a master’s in computational radiation oncology and a PhD on the development of machine learning models for the analysis of brain network dynamics. Some of us only missed out on that course by a point.
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“What’s a fun fact about you?” Channel 4 asked him. “A fun fact about me? Apart from my PhD project, I build portable brain scanners!”
That Crabtree has any free time at all is a wonder, that he uses it to build portable brain scanners? Do you ever feel like you’re not making enough use of your time?
The fun fact business was part of Channel 4’s Boat Race-covering debut after the BBC decided to drop it last year, possibly concluding that having the same finalists in the race since 1856 was a touch samey, thereby failing to fire the public’s imagination.
You’d guess Channel 4 hoped their “fun facts” feature would include revelations like, say, “I was once arrested for exposing myself in The Drunken Duck in Skegness and spent the night in a cell with the MP for Mid-Kent and Faversham.” Instead, this being the Boat Race, you had revelations like that of Cambridge’s Simon Hatcher: “I have a particular soft spot for prehistoric sea creatures.”
Undeterred, Channel 4 tried again to liven things up with a “Fantasy Crew” pick, Frankie Dettori (the cox, naturally), Paula Radcliffe, Jude Bellingham, Tyson Fury and Serena Williams all making it in to the boat – which probably would have sunk due to the collective weight of the egos.
Not to be unkind, but Channel 4 was trying a bit too hard; fun features primarily devised to attract the “yoof” rarely work in these telly attempts to reinvent the wheel. Hiring a reality TV star, Jamie Laing, was part of that effort, but he looked as at home covering the Boat Race as you or me might have done developing machine learning models for the analysis of brain network dynamics.
To add to Channel 4’s woes, the air turned blue on several occasions during their live broadcast, like when the cox for the Oxford women’s crew, who had just ended Cambridge’s eight-year-winning streak, told them that this was “a f***ing awesome day”. The women from Oxford had risen.
“Sorry,” said Clare Balding, who was worn out from apologising by the time the Cambridge lads made it a four-in-a-row. “Get f***ing in!” hollered one of their chaps, which you just don’t expect from people called Rupert, Tobias or Barnaby.
There was, incidentally, Irish interest in the men’s race, Skibbereen’s Ciarán Hayes, the first person from this here island to umpire it. He had his work cut out too, the rowdy crews hell-bent on thundering into each other. “Cambridge!” he roared more than once, but they eventually pulled away, so the chances of a collision were ruled out.
That didn’t stop co-commentator Martin Cross trying to retain our interest in the race by suggesting that anything could happen, like Cambridge being torpedoed by a prehistoric sea creature. But that was a straw-grasping exercise; Simon’s crew cruised home.
Jamie was tasked with MCing the trophy presentation ceremony. “Commiserations go to the losing crew – Cambridge University Boat Club!”
Silence from the crowd.
Jamie: “Sorry, my mistake, that’s a typo – commiserations go to the losing crew – Oxford University Boat Club!”
“It’s like the Oscars all over again,” Jamie muttered.
