The China Mail - Boat Race captains will be French in historic first

When the two boats take to the River Thames in London on April 4, three-time defending champion Noam Mouelle will lead the Light Blues of Cambridge against the Dark Blues of Oxford captained by Tobias Bernard, a Londoner born to a French father and a Franco-American mother.

"As Noam said, it's a fun fact, it's amusing," 23-year-old Bernard, who studies chemistry at Oxford, told AFP on the sidelines of the team announcements.

Mouelle, 24, said the nationality of the two captains meant little in an event that was first run in 1829.

"The cool thing is that it shows that no matter where you come from or what you did before, as long as you commit 100 percent to the project, the training programmes and the club's culture, it doesn't change anything," he said.

Mouelle, a physics PhD student at Cambridge, took his first strokes aged nine at his local club in Le Perreux-sur-Marne outside Paris and represented France at world championships up to Under-23 level.

He said he chose Cambridge to combine research with his love of rowing.

"The Boat Race has always been in my imagination," he said. "It's a hugely publicised event in rowing, there are lots of videos on YouTube, sometimes you see it on TV.

"After that, it's true that when I lived in France, it was hard to imagine that I would be part of this world one day; it's funny that I'm here and that I'm even the 'president' of the club," he said, using the Boat Race term for captain.

The role involves finding the coaches, selecting the team and choosing the boat as well as devising the training programme.

"You have to know how to support the other teammates, motivate them, and also communicate with the coach to know how the team is feeling," Bernard said.

He has vivid memories of his debut in the race last year, despite Oxford's defeat by Cambridge.

"It's like being in a stadium that's seven kilometres long; the atmosphere is incredible," he said.

K.Lam--ThChM