Saturday saw the Iffley Road Stadium host the annual athletics Cuppers competition. With the Varsity athletics meet only two weeks away, this was one of the last opportunities for athletes to stake their claims to represent the University against the Tabs. The overall winners of the event, however, have yet to be confirmed, with both Balliol and New in contention.
On a fresh spring day, a mixed bag of seasoned Blues and part-time athletics enthusiasts gathered with various different (and at times conflicting) interests. While some athletes viewed Cuppers as the last piece of preparation before the year’s climax against Cambridge, others simply competed for college pride, regardless of their individual abilities (or lack thereof).
It was this gulf in interests that enabled both Balliol and New to assert their dominance of the contest, flooding innumerable events with mediocre , but willing, athletes, who could simply win points for their college by entering an individual event.
One such ‘competitor’ spoke of this division of interests: “Basically everyone there was a Blues athlete and was competing for themselves. No other colleges seemed to care about winning it, apart from us [Balliol] and New.”
Aside from the farcical gulf between enthusiastic college athletes and talented Blues, which allowed both Balliol and New to rack up points, there was some athletics of genuine quality on display. Arguably the outstandnig performance of the day was Vartan Shadarevian who won the covetedprize of the 100m title, closely followed by the elegant Apoorva Joshi who proved his natural pace by keeping up with seasoned sprinters in spite of little training.
Shadarevian ran an impressive time of 11.2 seconds considering the race
conditions, with competitors running into a headwind. Fresher Sam Trigg produced dominant displays in both the long jump and the triple jump, including a personal best in the long jump, placing him in an ideal position for Varsity. Trigg of Worcester College has already jumped the Blue distance for the triple jump this year and looks like he could be a very valuable asset for OUAC.
Budding athlete and Balliolite Harry Parkin recalled his thoughts on the day’s action: “It was a duel to the very end. Both sides putting in as many people into as many events as possible, hoping to score points. They had more people, but I think we had better athletes.”
