TAKING PART in this afternoon's Boat Race will, for one Cambridge oarsman, feel "slightly bizarre". Even before his future as an Irish international was being marked out, Roger Pim has focused his entire rowing career on competing a race that may last less than 20 minutes.
By his own calculations, the 21 year old economics student from Ballygowan, Co. Down has trained two hours for every stroke of the Tideway that lies in wait today. It is a course that Pim has been racing in his head for the last six, months, and at this stage there is little room there for last minute distractions.
Past evidence suggests that neither the dark blues of Oxford nor the estimated 140 million who will see the race are likely to reduce Pim to a nervous wreck. Early coaching reports from Belfast's Methodist College picked him out as a self assured and competitive athlete.
According to Pim, the talent emerged almost by default: "I was too small to play rugby so I tried rowing out and the next year I suddenly shot up to 6'5" and gained three stone." The call from the Irish junior selectors soon followed, and in 1993 and 1994 he became a regular on Home International and Coupe de la Jeunesse podiums.
Even while he was stroking Ireland's coxless four to a below par seventh place in the Junior World Championships in Munich, however, Pim had his sights on Cambridge.
In the past, Methody has been a charmed source for Boat Race crews - Alan Kirkpatrick in the dominant Oxford crew of the 1980s and Sinclair Gore in the 1993 crew that started the current Cambridge run - and few friends believed him when he said he was giving up rowing once he reached Downing College.
There are also those who claim that missing out on last year's blue boat hit Pim harder than he is prepared to admit. The common view is that he was the next man in line for a seat, but Pim remains philosophical about coming so close.
"Rowing the Boat Race is something that I dreamed of when I was a 15 year old and maybe because I didn't expect to get that close in the end, I don't think I was too, upset." Last year's Goldie reserve boat was nevertheless extremely quick and, in retrospect, Pim sees it as having been a valuable experience.
Pim is already looking beyond this race and by his own admission he is spoilt for choice. Irish squad coaches have been kept up to date with Pim's progress and it is widely accepted that he could walk onto a boat if he wanted. However, rowing for Cambridge has opened the way, as it did for Sinclair Gore a few years ago, to rowing in a British crew. If everything was equal he says, "if there was even a chance to row for Ireland, I would jump at it."
Over the last six months the Cambridge squad has been whittled down from 60 to the final eight, and Pim has had to follow a punishing schedule to stay in the running. Boat Race training is a 40 hour a week job and Pim's study has often had to be crammed in the early hours of the morning.
His promotion to the first boat, along with two other Goldie 96 crew, was confirmed just a fortnight ago. Having been uncertain whether he would still make the standard after falling behind because of illness, the news was greeted more with relief than jubilation.
The sick leave probably cost Pim the stroke seat, but his move to the number two seat in the bow of the Cambridge boat is not one that is going to upset its balance. British Olympic coach Robin Willams has assembled the tallest ever boat race crew - the average height is 6'5 3/4" - and Pim weighed in on Monday as one of the smaller oarsmen.
Brad Crombie, one of the Canadian eight who finished fourth in the Olympics, and the British international Alex Story were both recruited from Atlanta, while two of last years blues - club president Ethan Ayerless and stroke James Ball - have been kept on.
Despite the obvious experience though, the light blues are unlikely to find themselves at the front of a gentle processional row up the Thames. After a number of lacklustre years, Oxford are back. Tim Foster leads what may prove to be a resilient world class line up.
