Men’s Blues 113:99 Women’s Blues 90:100 Men’s Seconds 96:114 Women’s Seconds 69:119 The many spectators that braved the variable weather conditions to watch the 129th Varsity Athletics Match witnessed a day of intense, passion fuelled competition as the Men’s Blues extended their sequence of victories to 6 and the Women’s Blues narrowly failed to repeat last year’s victory. Although both Oxford 2nd teams lost, the performances were gutsy and the pride of representing Oxford in this historic occasion shone through. Many stalwarts of OUAC closed the chapters on their Varsity careers with exceptional performances. Jenny Duff repeated her triple victory of 2002 in the hammer, shot put and discus and was deservedly awarded the Susan Dennler trophy for best female performance. Oxford indeed dominated the heavy throws with C. Kapande placing 2nd in both the hammer and discus and O. Reade 2nd in the shot. Chris Sleeman won the 400m hurdles by 0.1s in 52.8s, overhauling his nemesis, S. Green, with a determined surge off the last hurdle. He also easily won the 400m. Nick Talbot extended his unprecedented sequence of 3,000m steeplechase victories to 5 in his final appearance in dark blue. Women’s captain Helen Edmundson blitzed the opposition with a new personal best of 12.2s in the 100m and a 25.9s 200m victory, ably supported by S. Burns who placed 2nd in the 100m and 3rd in the 200m. Finlay Wright was cruelly denied victory in the 100m when his hamstring pulled with 7m remaining. Despite the immense pain he still finished 2nd in 10.9, the same time given to 1st place. Sam Watts, who has fought injury this year, ran exceptionally well in the 400m hurdles to take 2nd place in a blues standard time, behind a meeting record by K. Taylor of Cambridge. There were fine performances from OUAC’s Varsity Match debutants. Fraser Thompson was majestic and indestructible in the 1500 and 5,000, leading Oxford to 1-2s in both events with N. Talbot and J. Brooks securing the 2nd places. Steven McCauley’s roars echoed across the track as he launched the shot put and discus to secure 1st place in both events. Sean Gourley got the crowds urging him on as he leapt to long jump victory in an impressive 7.01m. He also won the pole vault in 4.20m. Kathryn Hesketh recovered from injury to achieve a 11.13m leap and Hannah Barnes soared to a meeting best performance of 2.20m in the pole vault. The performances of the veterans were no less impressive. Dave and Pete Harding could not quite manage a 1-2 in the javelin but Dave did finally secure his 1st victory with 53.11m. Sarah Lane was 20cm away from victory in the long jump. Helen Zenner and Emily Crowley performed well to take 2nd and 3rd in both the 800m and 1500m behind Cambridge’s class athlete E. Leggate. Highlights from the 2nd team matches included victories for L. Bromilow in the 800m, S. Lowery in the high jump, G.Davies in the 5,000 and 1-2s in the 110mh by O. Odudu and J. Crawshaw.
ARCHIVE: 4th Week TT 2003
Varsity Triumph for Men’s Blues
