Oxford's Andrew Triggs Hodge shows his delight with the win

The winners, the heaviest-ever Boat Race crew, showed good technique as well as strength in the two-length win.

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.

I'm going to come back next year and if we don't win it will really suck! Oxford's Barney Williams More Boat Race reaction

"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."

His team-mate Barney Williams said victory on the Thames surpassed his Olympic silver medal for Canada in Athens.

"Sport is all about winning and losing so in that sense today was better. It's the greatest feeling. I'm going to come back next year and if we don't win it will really suck!"

Cambridge won the toss and chose the Middlesex station, but their advantage soon disappeared after their poor start as Oxford showed better technique.

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.