Sport on the Internet

CROWDS OF more than 250,000 are expected on the banks of the Thames between Putney and Mortlake to watch the 145th Boat Race on Saturday. There will be no live video streaming of the eights on the Web, so TV has the edge for those who want to see the action as it happens without jostling for position on the Tideway. However, the Web is worth visiting before and after the race.

For news about the event, the official site is strong on detail. Regatta Magazine stories from the 1997 and 1998 races are archived on site. Reports on the trials leading up to this year's main event are also there for the reading. Full crew listings, biographies and portraits of the true blue Oxford and Cambridge rowers who made the cut are already online. A picture gallery for photographs of this year's race is poised to open. Details of the often overlooked other boat races are as easy to find as the main event.

Cambridge are leading Oxford with 75 victories to 68, with one dead heat. Cambridge are also the form team with consecutive victories since 1993, but the official site gives no clues who has the edge this year. Turning to the University sites does not help much in this regard.

The Oxford and Cambridge University club pages are rich with references and links which are probably full of meaning, but only to club members and the rowing cognoscenti. They do not provide instant insight for casual visitors.

If you want to understand the terminology, or want some inside gen on form so that you can convince yourself that your bet with the bookies has the benefit of insider knowledge, there are other places to go. You can browse the rec.sport.rowing newsgroup, providing your Internet service provider has it on its server, or you can point your browser to the Virtual Library Rowing Chat room.

Connecting to the chat room with a Java-enabled fourth-generation browser is no problem at all, at least not for Windows users. Those with other platforms and browsers will have to take pot luck. Once in, you can pick the brains of anyone who happens to be around. It can be a lonely place, you'll have to vary your visit times to find a full room.

If you are suitably impressed with the race, and, in turn, want to impress others that you're someone who knows the difference between his fins and his spoons, try stopping off at The Rowing PostCard. There are a couple of dozen pictures you can choose here depicting rowing related themes such as "beer-happy" and "cranking". Choose the one you want to send, write your message in the space provided. fill in the recipient's e-mail address, and hit the send button. Within seconds your electronic post card will be winging its way.

If the boat race crew e-mail addresses were online, you could send them postcards of congratulations or commiseration. Perhaps that's why their addresses don't seem to be on the official site.

Site Addresses

Cambridge University Combined Boat Clubs

http://www.cam.ac.uk/CambUniv/Societies/boatclub/

Oxford University Rowing Clubs

http://users.ox.ac.uk/rowing/

Virtual Library Rowing Chat

http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/other/rowing/chat.html

The Rowing PostCard

http://rowersworld.com/Cards/