BRITISH Olympic bronze medallist Heidi Long is daring girls to dream when they watch her tear down the Thames in the Boat Race.

The 28-year-old is set to stroke Oxford’s dark blue boat on Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the men’s and womedayn’s events both taking place on the historic 6.8-kilometre Championship Course.

Long, who was on the podium last summer in Paris with Team GB’s women’s eights, remembers sitting on the London river’s bank at a younger age, not even noticing the lack of female crews because the absence back then felt “so normal.”