Cambridge v. Harvard

On the sunny Charles River last week, Cambridge University's crack rowing crew lined up for a race with the best in the East--Harvard, M.I.T. and Boston University. Harvard's Coach Tom Bolles, who had led his 1950 crew to victory in the Grand Challenge Cup races at Henley-on-Thames last summer, was on the glum side. The U.S. crew season had only just opened. He figured his crew could be "about four lengths faster a month from now," since in spring practice Harvard had only managed to log 180 miles. By contrast, Cambridge, in the racing pink, Had logged practice spins of about 850 miles, had defeated its traditional rival Oxford by 15 lengths, then whipped Yale a fortnight ago by four lengths (TIME, April 23). Said confident Cambridge Coach Harold Rickett: "We'll never be any better than we are now."

His simple strategy for the race called for "fast foot" from the start. Within the first minute, the longer (by 14 in.) and lighter (by 40 Ibs.) Cambridge shell jetted to the lead at a 42-stroke-a-minute clip. Harvard fell gradually behind. According to Coach Bolles's strategy, his crew was to conserve its strength at first, catch up with Cambridge in an all-out final sprint. But by the time Harvard made its bid, the smooth-stroking Cambridge "fast foot" had run away with the race. The blue-tipped oars of Cambridge flashed across the finish line almost two full lengths ahead of the pride of the U.S. Eastern crews. Boston and M.I.T. puffed in Harvard's wake.

Harvard's Bolles, whose crews have been beaten only twice before in the past three years (by Yale in 1949, by M.I.T. in 1950), was not too depressed. "After all," he grinned, "I only have to worry about beating one crew a year--Yale in June."

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