Anyone who doesn’t know what this curious word stands for, I am sorry that your life has not been thus enlightened. DOXBRIDGE is the fond term for the epic sports tournament that occurs over in Dublin at the beginning of every Spring holidays between the three universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham. And when I say epic, I really do mean it: three days of competitive sport, competitive socialising, and competitive madness sandwiched in-between a day of travelling at either end. What more could one ask for?

6.25am A phone alarm rings all too early in a high-ceilinged yellow dorm somewhere in the depths of Dublin city. It is quickly silenced. There is a strong possibility hovering in the air that no-one will be sitting on our 7am bus. The floor is occupied by 9 suitcases, overly large for a 5-day trip of course but that’s essential for the female’s peace of mind (and especially if there are fancy dress themes involved). Their innards are scattered around the perimeter of the room leaving a central space for the empty bottles and chipped china mugs from the youth hostel kitchen that explain, all too plainly, why the finest of Wadham netball team are currently dead to the world.

6.30am A second, more insistent alarm goes and people begin to stagger to their feet with varying degrees of enthusiasm. With only one bathroom in the shared dorm, progress is slow and as a result there is no possibility of having time to scrub off the pirate tattoos still branded on us from the ‘nautical’ theme of the night before.

7.45am We arrive at the sports centre after a quiet bus journey – more a voyage of silent reflection than of animated conversation. The university sports centre, sensibly enough at this hour, is almost entirely empty. The teams make a bee-line for the netball courts where people begin to look around, size each other up. In the netball competition there are four Oxford teams, one Cambridge team and about 10 Durham teams. As a whole this seems quite an accurate reflection on the tournament as a whole, with Durham putting out by far the most teams, followed by Oxford, and Cambridge having the least number of representatives. Boring tabs.

8.30am The tournament kicks off and the cheering begins with Wadham A vs. Wadham B – a nice friendly game to get us going before we take on the real opposition. The matches are 10 minutes each way with a short break for half-time. That may not sound like very much but believe me, with the large quantity of alcohol still running around in 99.9% of the players present it was more than enough to create some very red faces. Thankfully the umpires take it all in very good spirits even if their highly trained expertise is perhaps at times wasted on some rather drowsy students.

9.30am Wadham A vs. St. Cuthbert’s. This first non-Oxford match is against the side that a number of people consider to be the top competitors from Durham so there is pressure to perform as we step on-court. The fact that the majority of the team are what normal people would class as giants doesn’t improve our confidence. The goal-shooter is definitely close to being able to perform the slam-dunk manoeuvre on a netball court. The running rate is high, as is the number of goals scored on either side, and at halftime Wadham finds themselves just a few precious goals ahead. The teams return rosy-cheeked to resume play and despite battling hard, Cuth’s manage to claw back to a draw at full-time. Personally I reckon that height rather than skill was the clinching factor.

10.45am  Wadham A vs. St. Hild and St. Bede. Reputed as another strong Durham side, but on this occasion our Oxford side manages to take them down fairly easily. As a result victory marks the end of the day’s play for us as we stand on an equal footing with St. Cuth’s. The teams pack up as the other divisions begin to arrive looking rather more well-rested. (Still a few cross-bones and anchors around though…).

12.00am Back to the hostel and ready to celebrate a top day of sporting achievement with food, showers, and…….. bed. Yes, we did spend the prime hours of the day sleeping. It really did feel good though.

16.30pm A group excursion to the local supermarket – ‘Supervalue’. It must be said that considering the dire state of the euro right now, we definitely purchased some suspicious ‘Country Cola’ that can rightly be deemed as falling into this category. It’s super cheap and super rough.

19.00pm Numerous gourmet meals are produced in the steamy overpopulated hostel kitchen, mainly consisting of the exotic staples of pasta or rice. The fight over pans and cutlery reaches an extreme height and university rivalry begins to emerge among the industrial-sized cooker units.

19.45pm Now happily fed, the transformation process begins as the entire team gradually take on the alternative identity of cavewomen. For a B.C. theme the muddy-faced, back-combed hair, leopard-print look really is hard to beat.

21.00pm And so the drinking commences…. seated in a large circle on the floor of our cosy dorm room, the games take place in the height of luxury with carefully removed plastic beakers. All drinking is done responsibly though of course, zero peer pressure involved.

23.00pm  Club time. The various teams make their own separate ways to the chosen destination. Thus we are to be viewed running through the Dublin streets in our cavewoman attire which proves to be wholly insufficient against the cold evening as we try to find an unknown street through a combination of orienteering and asking locals.

23.30pm Club located. Leopard-print fest. Enough said.

And so concluded the first official day of our Doxbridge adventure. Losing to the overall winners of the tournament in the semi-finals gives testament to it being a pretty good recipe for success. After a day of sleeping, eating, valiant attempts at running, drinking and more drinking, it was Doxbridge 1 – student health 0. Long live Doxbridge.

Don’t be fooled by the serenity of the landscape. The ever-expansive sandy scene, undulating and oozing like honey to the horizon and beyond. Sandy, yes; billions of granules of sand. Making their own race across the desert as they chased me, bit at my torso, whipped my face, gritted my eyes, sank duplicitously under my steps. This was their game. This was my challenge. This was the Marathon des Sables: the Marathon of the Sands. The toughest footrace on the planet. There was no Romanticism here.

This is perhaps a realization that crossed the minds of Oxford students Adam Park and Tom Lickiss as they raced across the Sahara this Easter in what was a grueling test of mental and physical endurance. The MdS is an ultramarathon, where competitors are expected to carry all of their supplies for the 7-day race on their backs (including sleeping bags, food, cooking supplies, and, most obscurely, 10 safety pins). For those of you impugning the true brutality of the race, I can assure you it is labeled an ultramarathon with complete veracity; in total it is 151 miles in length, usually broken up into 6 sections, and is designed to be run. Running 6 marathons in 6 days is pretty serious; particularly considering the middle of the race is met by a double-marathon stage. It’s pretty serious, considering it takes place in a desert where early morning temperatures soar above 40 degrees Celsius; where sandstorms constantly rap the landscape; where food and comfort is as limited as running water in the developing world. And still, despite all this, the competition enjoys the participation of around 700 individuals from across the world each year. What is it that drives them to do it? Masochistic tendencies? Utter lunacy? Or a desire to discover their true character in the most rigorous and testing way possible? This is what I seek to find out.

To begin with, Adam and Tom were never first-hand couch potatoes, the kind to justify such a lifestyle with the typical “I’m a student!” exclamation as if it was a prescribed manner of conduct. Between them, these two Univ students have cycled 12,000 miles across multifarious terrain on 3 different continents, completed an Ironman triathlon, two 100km Trailwalker races, an 80km footrace, and now, the Marathon des Sables, raising over £20,000 for various charities. They are challenge-seekers through and through, and seemingly, remarkable young men. Extremely multitalented; almost freakishly so, with the intelligence and social skills that would turn most green with envy. But despite natural physical ability for sport and endurance (Adam is a Black Belt in TaeKwon-Do and was a trialist for the Home Countries International England Rowing Squad), months of intensive training, and immeasurable dedication to their latest challenge, nothing could have prepared them for their latest tour de force.
How does one even approach such an event, and why? Adam disclosed to me, “I had no idea what kind of trouble I was going to run into, how much pain I was going to have to take, only that I was going to and that I would find out the kind of person I really am when I did”. And perhaps that was it. To push yourself to the physical limit, to see if your character can really be as tough as you want it to be. To climb your own psychological mountain. I imagine that a feeling of incredible vulnerability must overcome you, looking out across those obscure and extending monotonous dunes, until an almost animalistic necessity to survive takes charge and you’re forced to react. Your coping mechanisms, your mental strength, and fundamentally, whether as a person you are built to cope with the incomprehensible pain, exhaustion, stress and delusion, will emerge, at least attempting to overshadow the sensations of loneliness and confusion. Nature cannot be the only dictator in this microcosm however. Here, society must occasionally step in, regulating your physical capacity according to the stringent (and sensible) MdS rules: one drip is permitted, but two grants you disqualification, my friend, and, perhaps more shamefully, your name ruefully stamped across the “QUITTERS” list. The ultimate mark of failure through the eyes of a competitor.

The race was a challenge from the offset, but became a struggle on day three, which brought with it the ever-looming double marathon stage, a dark, rumbling cloud that had been hanging heavily over the entire course. This year, the stage was 10km longer than previous years and the longest stage in the history of the MdS. 91km of sand, rocks, wind, blistering sun in the day and bitter cold at night. The desert became a dark place, stripped down to the fundamentals, a vast, consuming vacuum, void of anything but heavy drudgery. Adam and Tom hit their “lowest and darkest moment of the whole race” during this stage. Following completion, Adam wrote of the “hard-hitting pain”, how each step felt like walking on “hot wax…and like someone’s poured rusty nails into my left knee.” Reflecting on how he was feeling twice as bad as after finishing the Ironman, he remarked poignantly, “I still have a marathon to run tomorrow”.

The demons in their heads, magnified through the starvation, physical distress (by this point they were both harbouring “pancake-sized blisters”), sleep deprivation and incredible fatigue, had taken a hold. Feeling the pressure to push on through the night in order to maximize their chances of making a quick long day stage, they marched on into the night as if possessed, shrouded by delusion, but quickly realized the absolute necessity to return to camp. Tom, overcome with fatigue and dehydration, entered the medical tent and two hours down the line was struck with the 3 magic symptoms that conveyed a drip: diarrhoea, vomiting and dehydration. As far as he was concerned, a drip was “a step on the road to submission”. His attempt at refusal was thwarted, however, and he spent the rest of the night attempting to balance the fluid bag on his shoulder as he crouched over a hole in the ground relieving himself. Not as bad as the poor guy who thought he had “soiled himself in his sleeping bag eight times” during the night, but pretty degrading to say the least.

By this point the race had become a battle of survival for many, but the knowledge of completion and having the end in sight provided most with great strength. Adam and Tom were forced to complete the race independently, but both managed to sprint-finish, fuelled by adrenalin and, in the final moments, elation. Adam came in 327th out of 774 competitors that day, while the end was met with mixed feelings by Tom, obviously very disappointed at being robbed of the physical capability to run the race like he had trained to. But both stressed that the priority had always been to simply finish the race, and that would be a feat in itself. They had done that. Medal to prove. What could possibly come next after the Marathon des Sables? The North Pole, of course: these boys never stop.

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge…
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue”
Wilfred Owen, 1918

“5…4…3…2…1…” counted down the time-keeping official, after which the Oxford Blues were crowned the national champions of British Universities Ice Hockey.
Let’s backtrack 24 hours: “The last time Oxford won a national title of any kind, to the best of my knowledge, was in 1933,” read aloud Captain Julian de Hoog to his teammates at the team barbeque from the printed email he had received from team historian Michael “Moose” Talbot. The weight of history bore down on the Blues’ shoulders in that moment. But that wasn’t the only thing to be worried about: over half the team had not played a proper hockey game in six weeks, and the other half hadn’t done so in at least five due to difficulties scheduling on-ice practices over the Easter vacation.
The team was out of shape, and would also be missing its starting goaltender due to illness. David Putnins had been the team’s solid backstop in every league match, save one, during the season, posting league-leading stats. With him out, young Andy Peterson, called up from Oxford’s Tier II squad to play in his first Tier I league match, had some big shoes to fill.
But the next day the Blues showed why Oxford was ranked number one in BUIHA power rankings, capping off a perfect season with a 6-2 victory over the Nottingham Mavericks. The team took a while to shake off the rust, going down 1-0 and 2-1, but after shaking up the lines a little and a spectacular breakaway save by Peterson, all the pistons fired up and there was no turning back.
Oxford’s relentless forecheck caused numerous Maverick turnovers and produced a slew of offensive opportunities. The Blues notched five unanswered goals in the second and third periods. This was complemented by a shut-down performance from Peterson and the Oxford defense.
Due to technical difficulties the last six minutes had to be recorded on a stop watch and the time called out between whistles. Receiving the cup was the capping of a spectacular and unprecedented season for Oxford.
“Every player on the winning team gets their name on that trophy, and every player deserves it for the performance they put out tonight” stated Captain de Hoog.
Lubbock reflected on his feeling of relief, “not only on winning the British University League but also on maintaining our 100% winning record. I also felt good…for the OUIHC, which now has another chapter in its illustrious history.”

St John’s fairy tale season ended on a high at Iffley in 8th week, as they came out on top against Premiership champions Teddy Hall, in a tight and absorbing contest finally decided by a last minute strike from Blues’ squad member Adam Zagajewski.
In front of a sizeable crowd, Teddy Hall began the match as clear favourites against their lower league opponents, having gone undefeated since they lost to St Anne’s on the first day of the season. Boasting a defence which included three former or current Centaurs players, including Nicola Ielpo in goal, they also had the Premierships main goal threat in the form of the giant Charlie Southern. Their squad was further strengthened by the return of Talbot-Smith, who had flown back early from his placement in Russia for the tie. For the first half at least, the match looked to follow its predicted course. Teddy Hall were the more physical of the teams in the opening stages and St John’s looked very much like the underdogs which they had been billed as.
But despite having the majority of the territory and possession, Hall never really threatened to score. In fact, the two best chances of the first half fell to John’s, Evans-Young forcing a smart save out of Ielpo, and Zagajewski hitting a well struck volley on to see it come back off the inside of the post and roll agonisingly across the goal line before being cleared.
St John’s came out the stronger after the break and began to play their own game, Duff and Easthamkeeping the dangerous Southern in check, while the tireless Affron was a constant thorn in the side of his markers, winning everything in the air up front.
The deadlock was finally broken 15 minutes from time. Paul Forbes was released down the right wing and had the composure to pull the ball back across goal, allowing loitering right-back Newland to finish from six yards out.
With their supporters momentarily silenced, Teddy Hall were forced to throw numbers forward, going to three at the back and, for the first time, began to exert concerted pressure on the John’s goal. Despite the constant threat, as the clock continued to wind down it looked as though Hall would miss out for the second year in a row. However, with five minutes left to play, John’s conceded the ball in a dangerous position, allowing Southern to find space on the edge of the box and rifle a shot past the stranded Berend.
With the crowds taunts still ringing in their ears, John’s almost conceded again from the restart, a rare mistake at the back leaving Southern in clear, but this time Berend was up to the challenge.
Just as extra-time seemed inevitable, the game was settled for good by Zagajewski. A mix-up between Ielpo and Gilbert allowed the diminutive striker to pounce on the loose ball and somehow bend the ball into the top corner from the by-line, sparking wild celebrations and an impromptu pitch invasion when the final whistle blew.
Questions remain as to whether the little Yorkshireman was in fact attempting to cross the ball, but he was unequivocal in his response when asked, as he stated ‘you’ve just got to back yourself from there’.