After the double victories at Freshers’ Varsity in November, there was a feeling of excitement in the university athletics team as they travelled down to London for the annual Indoor Varsity Field events and relays match. The team made an excellent start winning both the men’s and women’s hammer competitions. In the latter, Laura Duke of Newnham broke the individual record with a phenomenal throw of 45.31 in the second round, which also contributed to the team record. Duke had a busy day, also winning the shot, finishing second in the pole vault and long jump, and competing in the discus and 60m Hurdles. Another Newnhamite, Emma Perkins had a successful day winning the high, long and triple jumps respectively and breaking the individual record in the high jump with a leap of 1m69. In the shot, all four of the Cambridge competitors threw further than anyone from Oxford demonstrating the quality in the team. The light blue women showed their strength in the field, winning five out of the eight team events.

On the track, the Cambridge women were even more dominant, losing only one event, the 60m Hurdles. Women’s captain, Kate Laidlow had a superb day, breaking the individual record in the 60m, anchoring the 4×200m team to a convincing victory and running the fastest leg in the women’s 4×400m. She was ably backed up by President, Lucy Spray who anchored the 4×400m team to another emphatic win. The Cambridge ‘B’ team also beat Oxford in the 4×400m demonstrating the quality and depth of the Cambridge women this year. In the middle distance races, the Oxford teams were extremely poor, but even without being pushed the Cambridge women showed their talent. In the 3×800m, Rose Penfold and Christie Noble both achieved the half blue standard, whilst fresher Katie Sandford only missed it by a second. In the 3×1500m the light blue women lapped Oxford three times with Rosemary Pringle breaking five minutes for the first time on the opening leg.

The men’s track team faced much harder competition from their dark blue rivals, but still came out on top, winning all but two events. In the 60m the Cambridge men clinched victory with Mark Dyble, Louis Persent and the first Oxford athlete breaking the previous individual record. Dyble had a stunning run in the 4×200m to secure a light blue victory by just a few tenths of a second. Persent, a world junior silver medallist, showed his class on the final leg of the 4×400m teasing the Oxford runner by easing round the first lap just ahead before comfortably striding away from him in the last 100m. Rory Graham-Watson also had a tough day running solid legs in the 4×200m, 4×400m and 4×800m respectively. In the latter of these he ran six seconds quicker than any other competitor in the event. The prize for the most inspirational performance of the day has to go to Eamonn Katter, who pulled out a superb leg in the 4×200m to move Cambridge into pole position, as well as running a strong leg in the 4×400m.

In the field, Oxford also pulled out some strong performances as a reminder to the light blues that they cannot be complacent going into the Varsity match in May. The dark blues had five individual victories in the field compared to Cambridge’s three. But the Cambridge teams fought hard to retain the field trophy they had won last year. Ayo Adeyemi pulled out a huge jump in the men’s triple jump to clinch victory for the youthful Cambridge team, as well as contributing to the team success in the long jump. The pole vault was the highlight of the men’s field for Cambridge who not only broke the team record, but would have still won without their top scorer counting. Nate Sharpe vaulted the blues standard height to take the Cambridge men to a convincing victory, ably supported by Tom Wagner, Josh Mouland and Alex Bates.

The Cambridge women claimed victory in the match for the first time in five years, but know they will face a much stronger Oxford side in May. At the start of this academic year, this Cambridge men’s team was seen as a development squad that would not pose a strong challenge to Oxford, but they are already proving that they have the quality to cause a big upset in May. Travelling to Oxford in May will have with it new challenges that the Cambridge squad must face, but for now there is great confidence within the team on which they hope to build over the coming weeks.

Wilberforce Road was the venue for the rather chilly 65^th anniversary of the Freshers’ Varsity athletics match on Sunday. The Freshers’ Varsity match traditionally has been a very difficult match to predict with neither side knowing what to expect from their opponents. The light blues began the day well with Lizzie Thompson of Trinity Hall and Christian Roberts of St John’s taking wins in the women’s and men’s 400m Hurdles races respectively.

Thompson certainly proved her talent in winning four individual events throughout the day; the 200m, high jump and 100m hurdles to add to her impressive 400m hurdles victory. She will be one to watch come the Blues Varsity match in May. Rosamund Healey of Pembroke took a fantastic double in the hammer and the shot, despite only taking up the hammer a couple of weeks prior to the match. Kathryn Hesketh, a former Oxford blue, has finally seen the ‘light’ this year and showed her former club that there’s no going back by taking victory in the long jump. Cambridge dominated the women’s jumps with one-twos in the high jump and triple jump, Helen Stewart of Newnham the victor in the latter. The CUAC women showed their strength in depth in the 400m and middle distance races; Katie Sandford ran a great race in the 400m winning by more than 3 seconds to confirm the light blue one-two, whilst in the 800m Rose Penfold and Sophie Dundovic eased their way to another impressive one-two. Sandford, Penfold and Thompson were joined by Taj Tomouk in annihilating a dismal Oxford 4×400m relay team, with the Cambridge women winning by more than 200m. Nikki Moss demonstrated her sprinting ability in style with an inspiring win in the 100m and a very strong 2^nd leg in the 4×100m relay. By the time Thompson took the baton on the final leg of the relay, Cambridge were already clearly in front and they made light work of securing the win.

The Cambridge men were equally impressive in destroying their Oxford rivals, with ten different athletes taking event wins. Alex Jackson of Queens showed that he could be a very useful athlete for CUAC in the future, winning the long and high jumps respectively and taking second in the triple jump behind team-mate Ismael Akram of Emmanuel. The Cambridge men’s throws squad is certainly one of the club’s greatest assets this year with no less than eight men competing at the match. John Garrity, who also plays rugby league, won the hammer and placed second in the shot behind Toby Haseler of Corpus Christi. Tom Elton deserves a particular mention for his performance in the discus. Elton, under immense pressure, came from behind in the final round to clinch the victory for Cambridge at a pivotal moment in the match. From then on, it was no longer a question of whether Cambridge would win, but rather by how much. Americans Nate Sharpe and Ross Elliot won the pole vault and 110m hurdles respectively in their light blue debut. Whilst in the longer distances, the Cambridge men proved they were a force not to be messed with producing one-twos in both the 1500m and 3000m from Tom Nutt and Alex Young in the former, and Dan Sellman and Sam Ashcroft in the longer distance. This all bodes extremely well for the Varsity cross country match in a few weeks time.

Cambridge showed time and again that they were the exceptional team, and Oxford failed to even put up any real fight. The CUAC captains Sam Dobin and Kate Laidlow should be congratulated for their efforts in leading their young teams to success in their debut match in light blue vests. It already seems that the year ahead is boasting an exciting future for Cambridge athletics.

Saturday 16th May 2009 was a record breaking day.  Wilberforce Rad played host to the 135th Varsity Sports and CUAC were looking to go one better than the 3-1 home victory in 2007.

All teams went into the match with high hopes thanks to a great indoor season, a fantastic US Tour (that time partnering Oxford), an astonishing BUSA performance, and lead up competitions with PBs from all areas, and the Alverstones team had long been targetting the biggest ever victory in the seconds match but what transpired was quite remarkable.

The CUAC Men’s domination was something to behold.  There were amazing performances from all members of the team.  The day saw great PBs from Humphrey Waddington and Mark Dyble, dominant performances from Louis persent and Ben Richardson take his tally of Varsity wins to an incredible 13!  The victory was certainly emphatic, equalling the largest ever winning margin of 49 points (129.5 to 80.5).  The Alverstones set a new record for the largest ever winning margin in the second team match, winning by 134 points to 76 (an astonighsing 58 point margin).  Victory for this team was perhaps always expected but one this emphatic will certainly be treasured.  The quality of the current men’s team can perhaps best be displayed byt the sheer number of full blues performances this year.  There have already been 21!  Compare this to the usual 14-16 over the last 6 to 7 years (and the mere 12 in 2007, the year of the last record breaking CUAC win).  Along with the quality improvements, the strength in depth is great and ever increasing.  This can bee sen not simply through the record win, but by the fact that many Alverstones actually beat the Oxford blues in their event.  This can be seen with the day’s final emphatic win in the 4×400m relay as both CUAC teams finished ahead of those from Oxford.

The Women’s Blues match was always predicted to be a more closely fought affair, and that certainly came to be.  Thre CUAC Women’s Captain Lucy Spray led by example, winning the 400mH early on and following this up with 4 further wins including the 100m and 200m.  She was ably backed by a very strong team and other event wins came from Emma Rowley, Kate Laidlow, Laura Duke and Emma Perkins.  However, there were some great performances from the Oxford women too and the match was in the balance thoughout the day.  Unfortunately by the time of the 4×400m relay, it was too late;  Oxford has pulled ahead just enough to ensure victory.  This meant that despite the comphrehensive CUAC win in that 4×400, Oxford crossed the line to win by a mere 3 points.  The Alligators however showed that the Women have also been increasing heir stregnth in depth as they crushed the Oxford Millipedes 114 to 87.

It was a great day for CUAC, with record wins, some incredible performances and the usual Varsity Magic driving everyone on and more importantly bringing everyone in the club even closer together.  The systems now in place are successfully nuturing top athletes, assisting progressing atheltes and encouraging new ones.  However, the day was just a little too reminiscent of the Varsoty Match 2 years ago, when a similarly spectacular victory ended 3-1 rather than 4-0 because of just 2 points.  That much sought after 4-0 will now be the central focus of the new committee.

Good Luck and GDBO.

Full results here

The Cross-Country Varsity Match, held at Wimbledon Common in London is THIS Saturday.

If you are free, please come along and support the Hare and Hounds’ Blues athletes.
A coach will be departing from Queens’ Backs at 8.30am.
E-mail James Kelly (jmk46) for further information.

Good luck to the Cambridge Blues!
GDBO