Summer 2024
Annie Anezakis has just been elected OUBC Women’s President, Lilli Freischem is celebrating Osiris’ Boat Race win, and Esther Briz Zamorano is racing in the Paris Olympics.
Two years later, a dream comes true for all three women as they turn the tide for the first time in a decade.
Spring 2026
When I spoke with Annie last year, she’d admitted that I was the first person she had opened up to about the women’s loss. It had been a hard race to lose, her third loss, the women’s eighth in a row. She wouldn’t return the following year; it was time to take a break and focus on her degree.
Having rowed myself (very casually for my college boat club), I was not at all surprised to hear that Annie had not only trialled, but made the Blue Boat once again. There’s something intoxicating about rowing that, once you’ve had a taste, never lets you go.
What made you change your mind about doing another Boat Race this year?
Anezakis: For one, having a few months out of the sport and away from the team made me miss it so much, especially my teammates, who are like my family in Oxford. The other reason was our post-race debrief, discussing what went well and what didn’t in the previous season. During that chat, we were throwing around ideas of what we could do differently this year. Alan (the head coach) threw out a couple names, and I just got the sense that this was the year they were going to win it, and I want to be there for that. That was the moment that I knew I was going to be doing it again.
Annie has been rowing for most of her life, having started in high school in Melbourne. Though she was “really bad” at the sport, and didn’t quite enjoy it until her last year. As a former swimmer, she loved being part of a team – she must have been doing something right, as she got recruited to Princeton in her last year of high school.
What was the rowing culture/community like at Princeton?
Anezakis: It’s different [compared to Oxford] because you have so many opponents, and you have many more races leading up to the National Championships. I never felt the same pressure there. I never felt like I was only ever a winner or a loser: there was always a second place.
After her overseas adventure was interrupted by Covid, Annie wasn’t ready to go home just yet. Coming to Oxford for a Master’s, she had hopeful visions of rowing with Osiris. A year later, she would exceed any expectations and race her first Boat Race in the stern pair of the Blue Boat. Returning to Oxford for her graduation ceremony, Annie realised she wasn’t quite ready to let go of the Dark Blues and her dream of winning the Boat Race.
To what extent did you follow rowing around the world, and to what extent did it follow you?
Anezakis: It opened the doors and made me realise what’s possible. I’ve always been quite academic and always wanted to do medicine, but if it hadn’t been for rowing, I wouldn’t have made the steps to leave home and go to such big academic institutions. It put the idea in my head, when it otherwise wouldn’t have been. It was more of a pipe dream that came true. I haven’t really sought out opportunities in rowing; they’ve been more incidental to the other things I’ve aimed for. Honestly, I’ve pursued the academic options more, and rowing has been a very nice thing to complement that.
Despite sharing many similarities with Annie’s journey to the Boat Race, Esther has very much followed rowing, wherever it may take her.
Esther learned how to row in Zaragoza, Spain, at just ten years old. It wasn’t a major sport, it wasn’t offered at her school, and it was mainly targeted toward boys. Though it was relatively cheap and therefore accessible, the conditions were basic, and the equipment left a lot to be desired. And yet, similarly to Annie, it was a community that she loved being a part of, and so she stuck with it.
After the Junior World Champs, she was scouted by an Ivy League in the States and left home on a full ride to Stanford. She describes sport there as being a massive part of the community, not just because of the athletes, but because of the support the crews received. Surrounded by so many hardworking people, she found it easy to push herself. Even in high school, she had a goal to row in the Olympics. A long shot? Tough and tiring? Maybe. But certainly not impossible.
Have you always had this kind of drive in you?
Zamorano: I’ve always had a good schedule. In high school, I learned not to procrastinate, to do homework before meeting friends. If there’s a possibility of achieving a goal, I will do anything to get there.
And so, after four years of rowing at Stanford, Esther started training with the Spanish national team for two years. In the summer of 2024, she rowed in her first Olympic Games in a coxless pair. One goal crossed off the list and LA 2028 still four years away, this was the perfect time to chase down another dream of hers. From watching highlights of the Boat Race as a teenager, in awe of the intensity of the historic event, Ester decided to apply for an MBA at Oxford. She was one step closer to the Boat Race.
Lilli, originally from Cologne, didn’t learn to row until she joined the Edinburgh University Boat Club’s novice programme, initially learning to scull, then moving on to eights. She spent a year rowing with the seniors at Edinburgh before coming to Oxford and racing for Osiris in 2023, and again in 2024, where they were the only Oxford crew to win against the Light Blues. Lilli made the Blue Boat the next year, as her sister Mia, two years her junior, raced for the Cambridge reserve crew for the first time. Unlike Esther, Lilli never dreamed of winning the Boat Race. She merely hoped “they wouldn’t send [her] away”.
Lilli and Mia played on the same football teams growing up, before, for the sake of killing time during the pandemic, stumbled across what would become a newfound passion: rowing. This was to be their first sporting clash other than ‘family friendlies’. As it was Lilli’s last year at Oxford, whoever won the race was also to win “ultimate bragging rights”.
This is how the two made headlines in 2026 as they became the first sisters in 22 years to race against each other. On the men’s side, however, sibling rivalries are less unusual: brothers racing each other has long been a recurring feature of the Boat Race. That is not entirely coincidental. In Oxford’s 2026 men’s Blue Boat, six of the nine athletes were privately educated, reflecting rowing’s longstanding association with Britain’s fee-paying schools. Rowing – like many elite sports – developed historically as an overwhelmingly male and upper-class pursuit. The men’s Boat Race predates the women’s by almost a century, first being raced in 1829, the women’s first in 1927. For decades, Oxbridge admissions were themselves heavily dominated by private-school alumni, while independent schools possessed the funding, facilities, and coaching structures needed to sustain rowing programmes that most state schools simply could not offer. Although those dynamics have not disappeared from the women’s side, the shorter and less entrenched history of women’s rowing at the elite level has arguably opened the door to a broader range of backgrounds and pathways into the sport, as seen in the diverse backgrounds of the women’s boat.
This diversity is something not only accepted, but actively praised by both Annie and Esther.
So many different backgrounds are represented in the women’s squad; how does this affect the team dynamic?
Zamorano: It’s such an eclectic mix of people who come to form a very tight-knit community. Everyone has a unique rowing history, not just in experience, but in age, too. It can be harder to row together here: no two people in the squad study the same thing at the same level, and ultimately, everyone is here to do their degree first and foremost. But having people with more experience means we can uplift people who haven’t rowed for that long, and they learn how to row better much faster. At the same time, I’ve developed so much over the past year, I’ve learned so much from the younger rowers. It’s easy to make a boat go fast with someone who’s faster than you – making a boat go fast with someone slower than you makes you a better rower immediately.
Anezakis: It’s one of the coolest things about the Boat Race. As much as it’s a massive opportunity, it comes with its own challenge. Trying to integrate so many different opinions and trying to blend everyone’s unique experiences isn’t always easy, but I think it’s one of Oxford’s greatest strengths. You’ve got to think about how we can keep pushing those with more experience without losing those who have come up through the development squad. Our assistant coach, James, has been pushing an insane summer development squad – the gap between people who have learned to row at college, and those who learned to row at school becomes smaller and smaller each year.
How do you think the college rowing community fits into the bigger picture of rowing at Oxford?
Anezakis: It’s such a special thing that is so rare to find. Without college rowing, we wouldn’t have the foundation of OUBC that we do now. The college rowers form the bulk of OUBC; people who learn to row at college, come up through “dev squad”, and stay on for a few years really push the top end of the squad up. There is a sense that the whole rowing community at Oxford wants to see OUBC do well, whether that’s people doing dev squad, trialling and just missing out on a seat in the boat, or college rowers. We felt all of the support really strongly this year.
How have you experienced the Boat Race and Oxford as an Olympian?
Zamorano: There is such a special spirit to the Boat Race. The rivers are crowded and everyone cheers for you. For a day, you’re kind of like a superstar. I’m so honoured and blessed to be a part of the Blues alumni now, and I really hope to be involved in the future – and to make it easier for everyone who comes after me.
It’s so easy to believe that the squad is a place of joy and connection, full of hardworking and passionate athletes. Annie, who radiates sunshine whenever I talk to her, glows with pride as she describes the squad as her family. Esther, who meets my slightly nervous questions with effortless kindness, is consistently bursting with praise for her teammates and coaches.
The warmth within the squad seems inseparable from the diversity of experiences that shape it. Women who learned to row in Spanish clubs, Australian schools, or university novice programs all pull together in the same boat. Whether the Boat Race was a dream, a goal, or something that was discovered along the way, it’s a life-changing experience that is opening up to people who once had no chance of being there.
It was about time the tide turned, and I couldn’t imagine a better crew to lift the trophy.
