A Beeping Tenacious Day on the Thames

Andrew Cotter was exhausted. "It was very, very hard work indeed," he said come the end of the Boat Race, and while he was probably referring to the toil of the Oxford and Cambridge crews, he could just as easily have been talking about the 17 minutes, 27 seconds he'd just endured.

It was only last month that the poor fella had to abandon his BBC commentating position at the Italy v Wales Six Nations game because the winter vomiting bug necessitated a speedy trip to the bathroom, but there were times yesterday when he sounded just as ill.

And putting a microphone on the Oxford cox, Oskar Zorrilla, probably seemed like a good idea at the time, after all this was the Boat Race so the language was hardly going to be industrial – at its most vulgar, perhaps, a cry of "oh poop, here come Cambridge!".

But: “DON’T JUST ****ING SIT THERE!,” cried Oskar, which, it has to be said, seemed a strange instruction to give to rowers of the non-gondoliering kind.

Cotter remorsefully noted the “rather unsavoury language”, and clearly hoped Oskar would relax, and with that he ordered his crew to work so hard they’d all be “****ING SICK!”

And you know, this was Easter Sunday on the BBC. And Songs of Praise followed the Boat Race .

Had the storm passed? “****ING TENACIOUS, BE ****ING TENACIOUS!”

No.

When victory was in sight: “**** YEAH!”

And, it seemed, the BBC just couldn’t find the off switch for Oskar’s mic.

By the time his triumphant colleagues were tossing Oskar in to the Thames in celebration, Cotter had got some wind back in his sails, the storm had, indeed, passed. And with that Oskar emerged from the river, declaring: “IT’S ***ING COLD!”

“OH OSKAR, COME ON NOW!,” cried Cotter.

He’s only 5ft 4in, is Oskar, but he packs a verbal punch, as his 6ft 10in colleague Paul Bennett confirmed, the BBC cameraperson opting for a wide shot after the initial attempt to include both Oxford men in the frame captured only Paul from his belly button down.

Clare Balding then had a word with Cambridge’s George Nash who was utterly dejected, so she decided to leave the rest of the crew in peace. “Now is not the time to speak to losers,” she said, possibly sounding a little harsher than she intended.

A great day for the victors, then, who had arrived in a mini-bus, Constantine Louloudis one of the first out the door, as Oxford old-boy Andrew Triggs Hodge noted, emblazoned with 'We are Oxford. Who are you?' and the name of the race sponsors, a multinational banking and financial services corporation, 'wealth management' one of its areas of expertise.

Happily, then, no fodder for lazy stereotyping about the Boat Race, but, alas, there was a whole heap of stereotyping going on over at Fairyhouse.

"Generally speaking, they're a weaker gender," said Robert Hall of women, which prompted Ted Walsh to chuckle nervously, which prompted Robert, in turn, to repeat: "Generally speaking."

“Well,” said Ted, perhaps sensing that his RTÉ team-mate was in deep gender equality trouble, “generally speaking they probably are, but when a good one comes along I’d hate to be giving her seven pounds. Wouldn’t you?”

“Oh yes, I’d absolutely hate it,” said Robert.

The conversation had followed the Mares Novice Hurdle. “We’ve got to promote mares,” he said, sounding for all the world like the Gloria Steinem of horse-racing presenting, but then he added: “We want to get them in to the breeding sheds.”

And the sisters thought progress had been made?

The big one, the Gold Cup, was won by Realt Mor, with a lead-from-the-front style run. “They were all up his backside there going to the second last, plenty of room . . . but they couldn’t get there,” said Ted.

In other words, not beeping tenacious enough.