He was picked up by a lifeboat and brought ashore shortly after the boats were halted. It is the first time in the event's history that it has been disrupted by a swimmer, organisers said. There was even more drama after the restart when, following a minute delay, the race restarted, only for a member of the Oxford team to break an oar.
Oxford were all but reduced to seven oarsmen when Hanno Weinhausen snapped his blade, leaving their rivals to reclaim the crown. One of the losing rowers was removed from the boat after he collapsed at the end of the race. Medic Alexander Woods, 27, was lifted from the bow and is recovering in hospital. He will continue to be monitored by hospital staff.
Alex's family are with him and he is receiving the best possible medical care. Sean Bowden, the Oxford University Boat Club coach, said the bowman's collapse was the product of 'the most extraordinary and unfortunate chain of events that have conspired against us to take away a win which I think we looked like we were about to take in the race proper'.
And we were ready to go and again at the restart we put ourselves in a very good position. And the outcome of the crash was a broken blade. Arrested: A man is arrested by police officers, centre, after stopping the boat race this afternoon.
Chaos: The protester, who was this afternoon thought to be anarchist Trenton Oldfield, is hauled to safety. The contest ended in no presentation ceremony and the Boat Race Company labelled it 'possibly the most dramatic in Boat Race history'. But it is not the first time the Boat Race has been temporarily stopped. In both crews failed to heed repeated warnings to move apart, and the umpire called a halt following a clash of blades for which Oxford was blamed.
Today's umpire John Garrett said it was his assistant, veteran rower Sir Matthew Pinsent, who spotted the swimmer. Today's controversial race was not the first time the Boat Race ground to a halt before either team had reached the finish line.
In , umpire Rupert Obholzer brought it to a stop after repeated warnings to both crews to move apart and then a clash of blades. The blade of Cambridge bowman Colin Swainson dislodged from his hand, but Oxford was initially oblivious to the umpire's red flag and rowed on. When the race was restarted, Cambridge was victorious, but the decision to stop and then restart the race remained controversial. There have also been six sinkings, with the result being determined by a sinking on three occasions.
Cambridge went under in and and Oxford in In , both boats sank and the race was rescheduled for the following day, while in Oxford sank and the race was rescheduled for two days later, when Cambridge won. And despite the genteel nature of the university competition, there have also been other controversies over the years.
Both the and races saw rebellions by Oxford athletes. In , there was a bid to oust president Ronnie Howard and coach 'Jumbo' Edwards. Cambridge refused to race any but the president's crew and, the rebellion quashed, Oxford went on to win the race.
The rebellion saw five American athletes in the Oxford squad refuse to row for coach Dan Topolski or president Donald Macdonald following disagreements over selection and training methods. But although the Dark Blues had to rely on oarsmen from the reserve team to make up the numbers, the crew still soared over the finish line first that year.
He basically said, "There's something in the water, there's something in the water". He thought it was some debris and then we realised that it was actually a swimmer.
Mr Garrett said the rules stated that crews had to 'abide by their accidents'. In fact in the immediate run-up to the clash I was warning Oxford so in my view Oxford were off their station.
Cambridge president Dave Nelson described it as a 'pretty dramatic race'. Speaking to the BBC on the riverbank afterwards, he said: 'It was really to-ing and fro-ing up until the island. But then Cambridge, who had the outside lane of the first right-hand bend, moved up a gear as both crews were warned repeatedly for their steering by umpire John Garrett. Oxford still had the edge as the crew passed the first intermediate timing position 1. Oxford now had to work hard around the outside of the next big left-hand bend and as the second half unfolded there was the prospect of another great race as neither crew could get ahead.
With the prospect of injury to either crew or the swimmer, the umpire stopped the race and chaos ensued. The pace of the incoming tide had already caused both crews to float further upstream, while the wash created by the flotilla of launches which follow the race had churned up the surface of the river to create potentially unfair conditions. It took half an hour for order to be restored as the crews took up positions at the point where the obstruction had occurred and the race was restarted.
Oxford immediately established their superiority to go one third of a length ahead, but their coxswain Zoe de Toledo had steered too close to Cambridge and despite more warnings from the umpire there was a serious clash of oars.
The Oxford 6 man, former German international Hanno Wienhausen, lost the spoon from the end of his blade, but the umpire decided that Oxford had been out of their water when the collision occurred and the race was allowed to continue. The swimmer, a young man in a wetsuit named as Trenton Oldfield, was pulled on to the umpire's boat and arrested by river police. There were suggestions last night that Oldfield has a blog on which he explained his intention to interrupt the race as a protest against elitism.
Race umpire John Garrett said that in organisers were warned that protesters might try to interrupt the race by swimming out into the Thames and that he had prepared for the scenario.
However, they had received no such intelligence this year. David Searle, chief executive of the Boat Race company, was on board the umpire's boat and spoke to the protestor. He said he knew what he was doing and that was all.
The race was 10 minutes old when the swimmer popped up from beneath the water just past the Chiswick Eyot, and the two crews were running neck and neck at the time.
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