The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Races take place in just over a month, so who is most likely to win this year’s races. Well first off, let’s look at the recent wins.

From 2004 – 2009, Oxford won four out of the five boat races, with Cambridge winning on the 2007 race. That year Cambridge had help from the German world champions Thorsten Englemann and Sebastian Schulte, as well as Kieran West MBE who is an Olympic gold medal holder, and GB medal holder Tom James, so it’s not surprising that they won. 2008 and 2009 were won by Oxford again, but Cambridge pushed on to win last year’s race although it was still very close. Oxford were in the lead most of the way but came from behind and overtook Oxford towards the end, finally winning the race by 1 1/3 lengths.

Since the beginning of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 1829, Oxford have won 75 races and Cambridge have won 80, so as you can see from these figures it’s very close with not one team taking a huge lead over the other.

The 2011 boat race squads have now been announced and it looks as though Cambridge has the stronger team, meaning they may get a second win in two years. Cambridge have four Blues returning to the team including Derek Rasmussen (the president), Geoff Roth from Canada, George Nash from Guildford, England and Hardy Cubash from Australia.

They also have five Goldie crew members returning to their seats including Joel Jennings, Mike Thorp and Liz Box all from the Greta Britain, and Hardy Cubash who was in the reserve boat that won in the 2010 race as well as James Strawson who rowed with the team in 2009.

Oxford on the other hand have four members returning who completed last year when Oxford lost the race, including Brits Doug Brace and Alec Dent, Moritx Hafner from Germany and Jack Carlson from the United States.

The stronger coach of the two would also appear to be with Cambridge. Steve Trapmore is the new coach for Cambridge and he knows his stuff. Trapmore was Head of Rowing and the Olympic Ambassador before becoming the coach for the Cambridge team, and he has also won gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics for Britain.

The coach for Oxford is Sean Bowden who has been the Oxford boat race team coach since 1998. Bowden had previously coached Cambridge from 1992 to 1994 when he left, and returned to the races to coach Oxford later.

So after gathering all of the information on both teams including the squads and coaches, it is clear that Cambridge have the stronger stance which of course would put them in front in terms of odds.

They already proved last year that they’re fighting back after 5 years of unsuccessful races, and this year is likely to be no exception in terms of determination within the team to continue a streak of wins.