sewage is routinely pumped into Britain\u2019s waterways<\/a>.<\/p>\nOxford\u2019s Heidi Long won a bronze medal in the women\u2019s eight at Paris 2024. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Politics aside, for anyone with a strong work ethic, there is much to admire. Carys Earl, competing for Cambridge, is studying medicine and spoke this week of working in a hospital to deliver babies until 3am before heading for 5am training. \u201cSleep is not something you get to do very often,\u201d Earl said.<\/p>\n
After eight consecutive Cambridge wins the Oxford women\u2019s president, Heidi Long, seemingly has the qualities to end their long wait for victory.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Long won a bronze medal in the women\u2019s eight at Paris 2024 and is striving for gold at Los Angeles 2028. The plan is to train full-time towards that after graduation this year.<\/p>\n
What Long calls \u201cmicro-studying\u201d has been essential in her punishing schedule since last summer. \u201cThat is what I rely on,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s surprising how much work you can get done in 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long\u2019s father, Keith, died before the Paris Olympics and his memory remains stronger than ever as motivation. \u201cHe believed in me from a very young age,\u201d Long says. \u201cTo have parents that love you that much, it just kind of sets you free. As a child I did not appreciate the sacrifices he made.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d get in the car sometimes and he\u2019d be like: \u2018How was rowing?\u2019 and I\u2019d just give a two-word answer, probably like most teenagers. And honestly right now, what I would do for him to just pick me up, and just chat about rowing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being able to talk about him because he was such an incredible man. So much positive energy. He cared about so many people and he fought so hard through his disease. I can do 10 more strokes in a rowing race. That\u2019s nothing compared to what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHeidi is an incredible leader,\u201d says Oxford\u2019s Annie Anezakis, president last year and back for a fourth shot at victory. \u201cShe has a real sense of how people on the team are feeling: always knows when to check in, when to push, when to hold back. I think she\u2019s built a real sense of belief. She\u2019s great fun to be around as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s got bucketloads of experience,\u201d says Oxford\u2019s Sarah Marshall, who is also back for a fourth attempt. \u201cThe great thing is she\u2019s really able to pass that on in a really useful way. To be able to translate that I think is a real skill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Channel 4 will start the fight for a new, bigger, younger audience, while the athletes can focus on a more straightforward but no less difficult goal. Win or lose, Long has already achieved something meaningful with Oxford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Channel 4 has screened plenty of elite sport since launching in 1982. Test cricket, the Tour de France,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-511265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}