Being given the task of breaking the two year stint of Dark Blue domination in the Boat Race, with a crew placed second in the betting shops, would strike doubt and crippling concern into the hearts of most rowers. This year’s 6’5" fifteen stone CUBC president Deaglan McEachern, on the other hand, has that all-American ability to take stress and responsibility and turn it into determination.

This man exudes confidence, and when he tells me with a certain poise and sincerity, "I don’t know what the bookies were doing, we never thought we were the underdogs", I can’t fail to believe him.

The more I ask him about April 3rd the more blindingly obvious it becomes that for Deaglan the Boat Race was far more than just another chance to bolster his trophy cabinet (one which already boasts silverware from winning the double and quadruple sculls at the US nationals and bronze medals in the same events at the 2007 Pan American Games).

The simple win-or-lose format of the event makes it all the more testing, but subsequently the taste of victory is that much sweeter. As he explains, "I’ve never outright won something before… with competitions like the Pan American Games there are layers of victory but with the Boat Race there is no way you can justify losing."

Worried that I might be taken in by the forceful Any Given Sunday style briefing and start a rowing career, I shift the conversation away from the boathouse. Off the water, aside from his possibly euphemistically named hobby of birdwatching, Deaglan is a self confessed "politics junkie" and when I’m told he worked on Obama’s presidential campaign his earnest, composed style all makes sense.

The one president does not intentionally mimic the other and there are some important differences - "Obama is probably a lot cooler than I am" – however some similarity is admitted, "Obama is not really an inspirational leader but a quiet, moderate guy who knows how to get stuff done… I feel like we are both workers."

When it comes to British politics there is less of a connection; unimpressed by the first TV debate, McEachern dubs Cameron as "disingenuous", whilst Brown is simply "anaemic". He grudgingly states "I guess I would vote for Clegg."

Before I am allowed to stray too far from the sport of his life, conversation comes back to the water. Predicting Cambridge’s future, Deaglan sees success; the system of returning Goldies is "what we do better than Oxford" and their win was all important. This is not a guess on his part but veritable fact wrapped in a pseudo-political sound bite: "Winning breeds winning, when you lose you only know how to lose."