People

By Guy D. Garcia

By the time the oars were dipped into the Potomac last week, the first annual / Oxford-vs.-Cambridge Alumni Boat Race in Washington had turned into something of a grudge match. The first salvos were fired by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman Jr. (Cambridge, class of '67 at Caius College), who accused the "Oxford pukes" of "selling disinformation" about prerace tactics. The Oxonians in turn charged the Cantabs with "Stakhanovite zeal," referring to the legendary Soviet worker who urged his mates to surpass production quotas. The rival teams proved to be a good match physically as well as verbally. With Lehman, 43, as stroke, Cambridge took an early lead but lost it two-thirds of the way through the 1,500-meter race, finishing a boat length back. "It was clear that the stars were in the wrong alignment," joshed Lehman, who vows to up the stroke and even the score next year.