Calling all freshers! CUAC needs you!

If you’re heading to Cambridge this year and are interested in continuing or picking up track and field, please get in touch with the President or Captains.  They’d love to hear from any interested prospective athletes and will give you all the information you need about the club and events we’re putting on during freshers’ week, Michaelmas and the entire year.

Remember: CUAC is not just for elite athletes, the club caters for all abilities and welcomes complete novices interested in taking up athletics for the first time.  Just get in touch and get involved.

Here are some important dates to put into your Michaelmas term diary:

6th/7th October: Freshers’ Fair - you will get information about the freshers’ fair, where all the University societies have representatives to tell you all about their club/society and you can sign up to e-mail lists and receive more information.  CUAC will have a stand at this event so make sure you come along, meet the committee and sign up (no commitment necessary).

9th October: CUAC Freshers’ cocktails - an informal gathering of other people interested in possibly joining the club, and the committee to tell you everything you need to know.  Of course, a few cocktails will be served in the spirit of Freshers’ Week.  A good way to find out whether you’d like to join our wonderful club!

10th October: CUAC Introductory training session (at Wilberforce Road Athletics Track) - particularly useful for less experienced athletes, this taster session will show you roughly how training will work, explain the squad structure, and let you have a bit of fun on the track/in the pit etc.  Don’t worry about hangovers and the like, it’s a very informal taster session - nothing too strenuous!

18 October: Inter-College Athletics Cuppers (at Wilberforce Road) - You should have been approached by the captain of your college team to see if you’re interested in competing for your college against other athletes from other colleges.  This is a great way to get to know other athletes, other people from your college, and people from other colleges.  A first opportunity to compete, it’s a fun event that caters for all abilities.  Come along, get involved, represent your college!

8 November: Freshers’ Varsity (In Cambridge this year!) - A great opportunity for new Cambridge athletes to get a taster of competing against Oxford.  In addition to the main Varsity Match against Oxford in May, and the Indoor match against them in February, this is a 3rd Varsity Match, especially for those who have not competed against Oxford before - this is not just for first years, it’s for any CUAC Fresher (ie, you haven’t been doing athletics at Cambridge before).  If you’ve been to the taster session, competed well at the Cuppers competition, and been to training and shown promise, you will be selected to compete against the dark side.

The new CUAC Committee for 2009-2010 has been chosen and and begin their journey to the 136th Varsity Sports in Oxford.

President - Lucy Spray

Men’s Blues Captain - Sam Dobin

Women’s Blues Captain - Kate Laidlow

Alverstones Captains - Mark Dyble and Amin Ahmadnia

Alligators Captain - Rosemary Pringle

Honorary Secretary - Laura Duke

Junior Treasurer - Andrew Lomas

Congratulations to the newly elected Committee and good luck in taking CUAC into the future and onto even more success.

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 bank holiday weekend saw the annual BUSA (now BUCS) Outdoor Championships take place and there were some fantastic CUAC performances.

There was a great medal haul including 4 silvers (Louis Persent - 400m, Rory Graham-Watson - 800m, Paolo Natali - 3kSC, and Humphrey Waddington - Triple Jump) and a bronze (Paolo Natail, again - 10k), and a great number of athletes making semis and finals and many more setting PBs.

Along with the medal winners, CUAC produced another 7 qualifying finalists (Ben Richardson - 110mH, James Kelly - 5k, Matt Grant - 3kSC, Men’s 4×100m, Ian Simson - Triple Jump, Ben Cossey - Discus, Polly Keen - 2kSC) and many athletes progressed to the Semi-final stages (Mark Dyble - 100m, Liam Fedus 800m, Kate Laidlow and Becky Welbourn - 400m, Rosemary Pringle - 1500m).  It was a great weekend all round with Personal Bests from many of the team (Rory Graham Watson, Humhrey Waddington, Mark Dyble, George Kenyon, Owen Churton, Dave Nefs, Sam Dobin, Ben Cossey, Ryan Harper, Polly Keen).

The weekend bodes well for the team heading into the Varsity Match with just one warm-up fixture remaining before the big day.