Jamie Laing was forced to apologise for on-air swearing by a member of the winning Oxford team during Channel 4’s coverage of the Boat Race on Saturday, as well as announcing the wrong runner-up at the medal ceremony.
The Made in Chelsea star was presenting for the broadcaster at the historic event, which Channel 4 were showing for the first time after winning rights from the BBC.
Cambridge University won the men’s race, after Oxford’s women claimed their first victory since 2016.
Laing interviewed victorious Oxford women’s cox Louis Corrigan post-race and was quick to apologise when his interviewee uttered an expletive on live television.
When responding to Laing’s question about race tactics, Corrigan said: ‘Just holding them where they needed to be, just managing how much stream we can get, how much rough water we can cope with and narrowing that down just right.
‘I think we did that really well and we held them at bay. What a f***ing awesome day.’
Laing quickly responded: ‘Excuse for the language, we are celebrating it’s okay.’
Presenter Clare Balding later had to issue another apology over swearing, after a member of the Cambridge team was heard shouting ‘Let’s f***ing go’ during their post-match interview after winning the men’s event.
Laing later also had to apologise for mistakenly offering his commerisations to Cambridge as the losers of the men’s event during the live presentation.
‘Sorry, my mistake. That’s a typo,’ he said, as the camera panned to the bemused Cambridge crew amid laughter from amongst the crowd before announcing the losing crew were, in fact, Oxford.
Cambridge were heavily fancied to win, but Oxford put up a fight in the first half of the race before falling away.
Both teams had to be warned by the umpire multiple times for drifting over as they competed for prime real estate on the river, which was battered by southwesterly winds.
In the end Cambridge completed the four-mile, 374-yard course with a time of 17:56:84, 11.02 seconds ahead of their competitors, in front of thousands of riverside spectators. They have dominated the men’s event in recent history, claiming seven wins in eight years. Overall, they lead 90-81.
Noam Mouelle, who has won his fourth Boat Race with Cambridge, said: ‘Feeling amazing. It was a super hard race. Everyone was blowing halfway through the race but everyone had done the job early so no problem. We just had to make no mistakes. Great race.
‘It’ll take a bit of time to realise it. The goal was to get the job done.’
Victorious cox Houdaigui said: ‘That was a fantastic race. All credit to Oxford and their eight rowers. We knew we had the right athletes in the boat. I love these guys. Hats off to Oxford.’
