All OF England's traditional sporting occasions - those that shimmer from the calendar - are generally referred to with simple, intimate understatement. The Americans invariably tack the words `greatest' and `world' onto all of their treasured sports events (crass, certainly, but often undeniably true). We in Ireland prefer not to elaborate beyond off-hand references to "the match", whatever the sport.

In England, however, they strip their jewels down to the bare essentials. The Derby. The Cup. Hence, the annual splash along the Thames between the good and sturdy sons of Oxford and Cambridge is known as `the boat race'. It is as if in conceiving suitable titles for their games the founders were oblivious to the possibility that other nations might also choose to hold soccer cup competitions or horse races or university boat races.

Such presumptiousness is in part a consequence of the Empire but also a manifestation of England's endearingly futile search for remnants of the old country, the land of sonnets and Churchillian rhetoric and pluckiness and "I say, old chap, you don't have anything stronger?"

There are two ways of looking at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. It could be disdainfully dismissed as a bunch of oafish rich kids larking about on a river simply because their predecessors did it. You could interpret it as a shameful indulgence of an essentially meaningless occasion in which the prestige is absorbed dependent primarily on the tradition.

You could argue that when the TV cameras go away and the Scotts and Gideons and Geoffreys go back to read whatever at the Bodliean, that real rowers, with pittence for funds, will spend thousands of countless hours on the same grey waters with no applause and no interview and no inheritance to fall back on.

You could hammer the boat race as some fanciful relic of amateur effort and privilege, something that seems out of place in a sporting period which is mostly symbolised by the antics of Stan Collymore.

Or you could, as the BBC do, regard it as a glorious and wistful exercise in unabashed naivete, a rare example of sport for efforts' sake, an invaluable and re-assuring reminder that some things, in an ever evolving world, never change. View the boat race in that spirit and it is hard not to fall for it.

The boat race works as a TV spectacle, however, purely because it is the Beeb which broadcasts it. The key to the whole thing is, as ever, Steve Ryder. It is a little acknowledged fact that Ryder, long before Des Lynam ferried both his dulcet tones and his groomed `tache to ITV, was the face and voice of BBC Sport. He is a throwback to the old Movietone days without being out-dated. On Saturday, he presented Grandstand from a small punt, bobbing gently along the Thames, well wrapped in tweed.

Put most sports presenter in this scenario and they would look ridiculous - at best. The sight of ITV's Elton Welsby, say, or Jim Rosenthal, drifting down stream with their ultra-vivid smiles and lurid shirts would be nothing less than ghastly - sort of Greece Uncovered meets Brideshead Revisited.

Ryder, though, was utterly at ease in this setting. Watching him at moments like this, it is hard to imagine that he went to school anywhere other than Greyfriars, loafing around with Bob Cherry and Harry Wharton. You see him stooped on waters edge and half expect him to produce a dozen meringues and a bottle of ginger pop. He evidently loves the unfussy pomp of the boat race, relishes calling out the heavily alliterative names of the rowers - Gideon Glassman, Benjamin Burch - and announcing their chosen academic pursuit.

Down the ramp the young heroes then strode, firm of jaw and clear of gaze and the whole scene brought to mind the immortal Blackadder line when Hugh Laurie, reminiscing on the friends of his gilded youth, recalled that, "even our acne had a strange nobility about it".

Ryder took particular pleasure in introducing Dan Snow, son of Newsnight's Peter, back for another year with the Oxford Blues. Before the race, the Beeb ran a sort of flyon the wall feature on Oxford's training, which began in a very frosty area in Spain last January. Much of it was a montage of typical third-level images - pasta meals, a bunch of them watching the Simpsons, wine bottles. One particularly impressive sequence featured Toby Eyers balancing a starched sock on the tip of his nose, which is not something they teach at Oxford.

But it also showed the tough side of the boat race - the persistent dawn starts, the weightrooms, calloused hands. Young Snow, mindful of his heritage, assumed the role of frontman for the group and gravely recalled the impact of last year's defeat. "It was a real feeling of shock. Later we looked at it and realised that Cambridge had had a fairly good crew but at the time, it was simple devastation."

That loss left Oxford seeking to wipe out seven successive years of ignominy on the water. Matthew Pincent, an Oxford old boy himself, joined Ryder on the punt to remember his school days.

Anyway, on with the race and yet again, the boats drew alongside one another, the oars coming within mere feet of clashing. "Dangerously close," murmured Gerald Davies, as the crews arced along Fulham reach.

From the outset, though, Cambridge looked to be up against it and across the last mile towards Barnes bridge, the Oxford crew pulled ahead and the sight of Cambridge lagging behind eased the pain of effort. Afterwards, there was of course bedlam on the shore.

"This is what it's all about. Everyone seeking a hug and a handshake," said Davis, approvingly. Steve Ryder was back on terra firma, now master of ceremonies and still exhilarated.

He interviewed Kajsa McLaren, Oxford's minute if bombastic cox, who explained that she had a twin who was equally as loud as herself and who also shared an interest in rowing. "And what happened to her?," enquired Rider. "She grew," shrugged McLaren, looking elfish naturally enough beside the towering Oxford crew.

Then it was the turn of captain Nick Robinson, who was invited to "sum up the guts, the courage". It was the language of a Valiant Christmas annual. Suddenly Ryder said farewll from the Thames and with a jolt we were back in studio and Ray Stubbs was buzzing through the Premiership results. After the lapping waters and mostly silent efforts of the crews, the noise and urgency of the after-match reports all seemed a little, well, loud.

Next year will mark the 147th year of the boat race and the best thing to be said about it is that it will be very much like the one that has just past.