1984: Boat Race over before it begins

The 130th Boat Race gets postponed less than an hour before it was due to begin, after the Cambridge vessel collides with a barge and sinks.

The first incident of its kind in the history of the world famous boat race, in which students from Cambridge and Oxford universities are pitted against each other.

(The Cambridge boat, estimated to have cost £7,000, ran headlong into a large moored barge, used by umpires in the middle of the river. The race went ahead a day later, with Oxford crossing the winning line first.)

From the BBC Archives. This BBC News report was broadcast on 17 March 1984.