Oxford put in a powerful display to win the 151st Boat

Oxford made the better start and although Cambridge had recovered by Fulham, they were always left chasing. The Dark Blues steered in front of Cambridge well before Barnes Bridge and from then on maintained their advantage to win in 16 minutes and 41 seconds.

Oxford's victory made up for their controversial defeat after a clash on the Fulham bend 12 months ago and makes it three wins in the last four races.

Oxford cox Acer Nethercott, who was part of last year's squad and was blamed in some quarters for the incident between the sides during the race, was delighted to have made amends. "It certainly feels a lot better today than it did 12 months ago," he said.

"Cambridge are a great crew but they came up against the big guns today. They have a great technique, but we were never just the big grunters we were made out to be in the build-up."

Cambridge won the toss and chose the Middlesex station, but their advantage soon disappeared after their poor start.

Bernd Heidicker admitted his team failed to capitalise after recovering from that error. "It was a bad start and after a bit of a panic we found quite good rhythm again and at one point thought it was okay," said the German. "But they countered again and we were in the situation where we had to move and we never really established our own rhythm. Maybe we weren't cool enough in that situation."

The crews, each containing four Olympians, had been hailed as the best ever in terms of quality but Oxford's time was 22 seconds outside Cambridge's record set in 1998.

Cambridge's Goldie won the reserve race in a record time of 16 minutes, 38 seconds, beating Dark Blue boat Isis by five lengths in a time three seconds faster than the main race.

Cambridge won the women’s boat race at Henley, their first win since 2001. Oxford led for two minutes but Cambridge swept past in the second half of the 2,000m course to win by two and one-third lengths.