That was part of a double, as Pembroke had also won the Torpids during the Lent term, and those achievements rank up there as highlights in Davies’ glittering career.“I was confident in our crew, and in our ability to win if nothing went wrong. But I knew that things can go wrong and often do […]
That was part of a double, as Pembroke had also won the Torpids during the Lent term, and those achievements rank up there as highlights in Davies’ glittering career.“I was confident in our crew, and in our ability to win if nothing went wrong. But I knew that things can go wrong and often do in the Boat Race, and that is one of the things that make it so exciting and so wonderful.”
“My most cherished memory is, broadly, the support of the Oxford men’s team,” she says, “there was one point where Stan Louloudis [the Oxford men’s president at the time] made a remark that he was glad to be racing Cambridge and not the Oxford women.
One of the greatest moments for Davies came long after the event had finished.
Arriving in January 2013, only four months after winning gold in London, Davies decided to explore the rowing opportunities having been told about the Bumps in Oxford.
A 12-time US national team member, Davies, along with crewmate cox Mary Whipple, became the first US women’s rower to win three Olympic medals and also earn medals at three consecutive games.
“I almost felt bad for the men because it felt like the level of interest in the women’s race overshadowed the men’s race. They could well have been upset about that, and they weren’t, they were very gracious and willing to cede the limelight to the women in that year.”
Yet here was someone who had experienced so much that, in 2019, she received the Thomas Keller Medal from World Rowing, becoming the first American to win the award which recognises an exceptional international rowing career as well as exemplary sportsmanship and legendary aspect.
“I did realise also through that experience that it is unusual for a woman to be in M1 and probably even more unusual to win Summer Eights.”
“It’s the hardest race I’ve ever rowed – I almost want to say the hardest race there is,” says Caryn Davies, reflecting on the Women’s Boat Race.
“You carry a boat through the streets and you dump it in your college quad and burn it. You don’t do anything like that when you win an Olympic gold medal!”
However, when asked her first thoughts about the race, they were much more modest and reflective.
“He looked me up and down and made this face and said, ‘It’s a little bit late in the year to start now and I don’t know if we’ll be able to accommodate you. Have you rowed before?’. I said, ‘yes, I’ve done a little bit of rowing, I think I can probably keep up’,” Davies amusingly explains.
“One of the things that I really loved rowing at Oxford was all the traditions, and almost mystique surrounding being there and being part of a crew.
“The thing that surprised me towards the end was how much that race hurt,” says Davies. “I felt like my teeth were falling out.
She adds: “The dominant emotion that I feel in moments like that is calm. When someone says you belong here, every muscle in your body relaxes and you think, ‘Yes, I belong here’.”
“But I’m sure there are ones that I’ve never gotten to row, so I wouldn’t know,” comes the slight caveat.
Oxford hosted their post-race dinner at the Hurlingham Club in South West London. It was a sea of blue blazers and walking over was Mike Blomquist, a member of the men’s crew and a friend of Davies’ from their Harvard undergraduate days.
“I think maybe one of the things that was special about it was that we were the first women inducted into this old boys’ club.
During that time, Davies was invited to do some training sessions with Oxford University Women’s Boat Club by Christine Wilson, the then head coach who had previously been a coach with the US squad.
It was not news that registered on Davies’ Richter scale, who had given it no thought and admits that she had no preconceived notion about what should or should not happen with the Boat Race.Somewhat surprisingly, she says: “I can tell you that winning Summer Eights was more fun than winning an Olympic gold medal. I think maybe because it was quite unexpected.
We are reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of the first Women’s Boat Race to take place on the Championship Course on the Tideway on the same day as the men’s race.
She had achieved everything possible there was to do in the sport, two Olympic gold medals and one silver, multiple World Championship and World Cup titles, and yet the 6.8km long course between Putney and Mortlake was the hardest to tame.
“I just showed up, pulled really hard and proved that I belonged there. Once they saw how fast I was, they were happy to have me on the squad,” she says.
In the fabled history of the Boat Race, it is difficult to imagine that there was a more defining day in the modern era, and the star of the show was Davies.
“I gave him my card to give to the Pembroke coach. It was a law school card, so it didn’t have my rowing background on it. The coach told me later that he just about fell out of his chair when he received it. ‘Do you know who this is?’ he asked the oarsman (he didn’t, of course).”
“Even in the race itself, we almost got bumped; three more strokes and we would have got bumped.
She went to the Pembroke MCR, and was introduced to a member of one of Pembroke’s men’s crew.
“I was very nervous,” she says. “I’m always a little bit nervous for a race, but I had never experienced a start like in the Boat Race where there is water flowing beneath your blades, so you can’t sit ready – you have to get ready and go all in the same moment.”
After silver in Athens and gold in Beijing, the gold medal in London in 2012 came little more than six months after it was announced that the Women’s Boat Race would make the move in 2015 to receive equal billing with the men’s race.
It was an introduction for what was to come, when Davies returned to Oxford to study for an MBA.
The interest that came with moving to race on the same day on the same stretch of water as the men, and live on television, was previously unimaginable, even for someone with as much global success as Davies.
Davies was invited to join the men’s squad as the coach felt that the women’s squad would not be up to her level, and she found a welcoming environment.
If there is anyone in rowing that would know, then it would surely be Davies.
“Apparently, it is not an uncommon experience for athletes in endurance sports giving a max effort. I guess you lose blood flow and you can’t feel your teeth so you feel like your teeth are falling out. I had never experienced that before.”
“He put his arm around me and said, ‘Welcome to the club’. After having raced the hardest race of my life that day, I felt like I finally knew what that meant.”
The high-calibre Oxford crew lived up to expectations, winning by six-and-a-half lengths in 19min 45sec, but it was not without a testing range of different emotions for Davies.
This, of course, changed over time, and was advanced when attending Oxford’s Pembroke College for a study abroad programme while doing a JD (Doctor of Law) from Columbia Law School.
