A handful of Oxford’s leading sportsmen and sportswomen lift the lid on what it takes to succeed at the highest level… Mark Sproule (Ice Hockey): “After an undefeated regular season we came into the Varsity match confident that our team would be able to defeat a strong Cambridge squad. Scoring the winning goal in overtime was an incredible experience. The moment combined relief and exhilaration, making all of the work with the team worthwhile. It was a great moment and I felt privileged to share it with the entire team, who all played Nick Talbot (Athletics): “Athletics has been an important part of my time in Oxford. Given the fantastic traditions within the club, a particular highlight for me was beating the OUAC steeplechase record in 2002, as well as winning a record-breaking five consecutive individual Varsity Matches. Other highlights include a victory in the BUSA Championships, and claiming a team bronze at the World Student Cross-Country Championships in Spain last year.” Sarah Taylor (Judo): “Oxford judo achieved considerable success last year. Against stiff opposition, the women won a team gold medal at BUSA to add to individual Silver and Bronze medals. The sport represents a great opportunity, offering a good social life, an excellent way to keep fit and first-rate coaching for those who wish to pursue the sport at a higher level.” Nick Talbot (Athletics): “Athletics has been an important part of my time in Oxford. Given the fantastic traditions within the club, a particular highlight for me was beating the OUAC steeplechase record in 2002, as well as winning a record-breaking five consecutive individual Varsity Matches. Other highlights include a victory in the BUSA Championships, and claiming a team bronze at the World Student Cross-Country Championships in Spain last year.”ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

COLLEGE SPORT Far from being subsidiary to Blues fixtures, college sport is the staple diet of University life, generating interest, support and disciplined performances. Rowing particularly, is at the forefront of inter-collegiate competition and the prestige of rowing in Summer Eights, and indeed Hilary term’s Torpids event, is based just as much upon effort and participation as upon the technical skill of those involved. Nor do college league matches fail to produce an entertaining spectacle. Last year’s football season went right to the wire, with eventual champions New storming back from a two-goal deficit to defeat Catz in one particularly dramatic end-of-season clash. In addition, almost every sport holds an annual ‘Cuppers’ competition, where teams from each college battle in dramatic style to uphold college traditions or pull off shock results. From rugby to korfball, Cuppers is about genuine enthusiasm and commitment. Most importantly, college sport fosters a real sense of community which can be appreciated in all areas of University life.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

Oxford dismiss Cambridge for an astonishing 56 runs to claim Varsity success VARSITY CRICKET Cambridge 56 Oxford 58 for no wicket It was a confident Oxford team that arrived at Lord’s for this year’s women’s Varsity match in early July. The side had enjoyed an excellent year’s cricket, leaving them certain favourites for the Nursery Ground encounter. However this had also been the case in the previous two Varsity matches, both of which had been narrowly won by the Light Blues. In a toss made all the more important by the threat of rain, Oxford skipper Kat Dickens called correctly and did not hesitate in asking Cambridge to bat first. The ever-reliable Annie Bowden and club president Felicity Allen opened the Oxford bowling. Both exploited the excellent conditions and the breakthrough came with just two runs on the board, when Olivia Sanderson was clean bowled by a vicious Bowden inswinger. The new batsman, Kent player Sarah Hill, hit two fours through the legside but, attempting a similar shot at the other end, was also bowled by Bowden. This brought Cambridge co-captain Georgie Latham to the crease to join their senior batsman Rachel Cowans with the score on 12-2. Cowans had made a slow start, but certainly has ability and her wicket was the most prized in the Cambridge side. Her downfall was a combination of a mix-up with her captain and an excellent piece of fielding by Lady Margaret Hall’s Helen Turner. Turner’s powerful throw from mid-wicket was enough to comfortably run out Cowans – and to bruise the hand of bowler Bowden. The Queen’s player was replaced with the ball by Turner herself, after a controlled display of swing bowling which gave her remarkable figures of 7-4-3-2. At the other end, Allen removed both Tab co-captains, trapping Ping Lo LBW first ball and bowling Latham for a single run, to put Cambridge on the rocks at an incredible 14-5. Kendra Butlin produced a gutsy 22 not out in nearly an hour and a half, but wickets continued to tumble. Allen finished her excellent tenover spell with figures of 3-16 and was replaced by captain-elect Helen Smith from Corpus Christi who bowled six tight overs. A direct hit from Susan Lowrey brought in the number eleven with only 42 runs on the board. Turner took the final wicket, to end with 3-21, and Cambridge had been dismissed for just 56. After this superb performance in the field, victory was a formality, but nevertheless to win by ten wickets required an excellent display by the openers. After a wayward first over conceding ten extras, Cambridge bowled tightly, but Heather Lang and Allen were more than equal to the task. Lang, like Allen, was playing in her final Varsity match, and finished it with a flourish. She hit three fours in the nineteenth over to finish on 29 not out and complete an impressive victory.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

SAILING This year’s match took place on the Solent after the end of Trinity term. The teams, one mixed and one ladies’, competed in Sonars, each with three people on board. On the first morning the sun was out and there was a light breeze. Adrenalin was high and the evenlymatched nature of the teams made for exciting racing. Oxford cruised home in the first Mixed race and also the first Ladies’ event. The Ladies subsequently added to their advantage, notching up two further wins before the end of the first day. In contrast, there was everything to play for in the Mixed contest with the teams level at two races apiece The next morning saw a change in conditions with heavy rain and a stronger breeze. The Oxford Mixed team secured an important triumph in the first race on the water. Then it was down to the Ladies to demonstrate their superiority once again. With Cambridge needing to win, the Dark Blues recovered from a poor start, pulling out some of their best teamwork and manoeuvres to complete a resounding four-nil victory. Meanwhile, the sixth race of the Mixed event went to Cambridge, leaving the score tied with only one race remaining. Oxford maintained their focus however, gaining the upper hand in the crucial seventh race. The Dark Blues overtook their counterparts coming round the final mark and held on to the finish. This was to be the first time in over twenty years that Oxford sailors had achieved the Double.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

SWIMMING After years of talking about it, the University finally has its own swimming pool. The Rosenblatt Pool is a high-quality swimming facility designed for students, staff and the local community to come and swim for sport, exercise and pleasure. Based at the Iffley Road Sports Complex, the construction has been made possible through generous donations from the University, Oxford colleges, the Rhodes Trust and individual benefactors. The 25m by 17m pool with a 2 metre depth throughout has a movable floor system and a high spec uva system to reduce perceived chlorine levels to a minimum. The water will be at a constant temperature of 28.5 degrees and it has a Poseidon computer system installed to monitor safety in the pool. There are male and female group changing areas plus private cubicles and one hundred and forty lockers. At £60 for the whole year and with seventy-eight hours of availability per week coupled with the high quality of the facility, this still represents great value. The number of student memberships is limited to nine hundred so those interested should pop down to Iffley Road as soon as possible.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

Oxford’s Canadian prop Kevin ‘T-Bone’ Tkachuk speaks exclusively to Cherwell about his ambitions for the forthcoming Rugby World Cup… “It is every sportsman’s goal to represent his country at the pinnacle of his chosen sport and to be living that dream over the next month seems right now too exciting to put into words. The feeling is simply incredible. My personal goals for the Rugby World Cup will be to enjoy every moment and live every experience to the full. “Regardless of our results, as long as we play to the best of our ability we will have achieved a sense of satisfaction. The competition for Canada, a largely amateur nation as far as rugby is concerned, will be very tough against Wales and New Zealand, but we do believe that if we play our best rugby we can advance to the quarter-final stage where we would meet England.” Canada face Wales in their first match of the championships on 12 October in Melbourne. Kickoff is at 0900 BST. New Zealand, Italy and Tonga are drawn within the same pool. Former Blue Simon Danielli, now of Bath, has been named in the Scotland squad for the tournament.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

VARSITY CRICKET Oxford 162-1 beat Cambridge 190 by 73 runs on D/L Method A swashbuckling innings from captain Jamie Dalrymple was enough to secure yet another Varsity triumph. The Middlesex all-rounder surged to an impressive 105 from 104 deliveries as deteriorating conditions saw the Dark Blues awarded a comfortable 73-run victory by means of the Duckworth-Lewis method. This one-day feat followed on from the innings success in the four-day equivalent earlier in the summer, a match in which Dalrymple had scored an unbeaten 236 much to the chagrin of the Light Blue pacemen. Such brilliance with the bat had come in addition to a five-wicket haul. The Cambridge performance at Lord’s was not without promise. Captain Adrian Shankar survived an early scare as he nudged beyond the slips from the bowling of Stephen Daley in the second over to construct a dangerous half-century stand with fellow opener Duncan Heath. Dalrymple shrewdly introduced the medium in-swing of Neil Millar and this variation proved decisive, slowing the run-rate to force the batsmen onto the front foot. Shankar was the first to stumble, clubbing a drive to Australian Clinton Free down at mid on. Millar added a second in quick succession, clean-bowling Heath to halt the score at 78-2. Two catches soon followed, with the wickets of Simon Marshall and Richard Mann, but fifth batsman Rudi Singh proved an altogether different proposition. Singh, demonstrating the poise and technique which had so eluded his team-mates, at least bridged the gulf in quality between the two sides.His first partner deserted him, but the second, Vikram Kumar, doggedly held his ground to the mild irritation of the Oxford attack. Still, such resistance could not be sustained and Kumar’s fine six over bowler Steve Hawinkels sparked the untimely removal of his treasured leg-stump before the end of the same over. Patrick Evans whipped off the bails to put an end to Singh for 35, as Cambridge stuttered to a disappointing 190, despite a useful knock of 26 from tail-ender John Heath. With Millar the pick of the bowlers, his 5-23 was reinforced by the stifling off-spin of Wadham’s Paul McMahon and the two wickets of youngster Mike Munday. The dismissal of Hawinkels for 6 did little to help the Tabs, thrusting the match-winning Oxford captain out of the pavilion and into the limelight. Joe Sayers stood back as the St Peter’s player took every opportunity to lash out at the Light Blue bowling. Daniel McGrath and David Noble toiled hard to no avail. He sauntered to 50, before completing the century from a further 33 balls. Sayers sucked out 36, but it was Dalrymple who stole the show, with his four sixes and nine fours, before light rain brought the piece to a close. “It is an incredibly satisfying result for the team,” the Oxford skipper told Cherwell. “We reinforced the dominance that we showed at Fenner’s (in the four-day match) and provided a good spectacle for the supporters. The only regret was that the weather denied us the pleasure of hitting the winning runs out in the middle.”

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BLUES HOCKEY Oxford 3 Purley Walcountians 1 The Blues commenced their latest Premiership campaign with a comprehensive 3-1 drubbing of a combative Purley outfit. Dan Solomon edged in the third, but it was debutant Mark Little who caught the eye with two extraordinary strikes. Purley, who finished two places higher than the Blues last season, had no answer to the flair and tenacity of the magnificent home side. Oxford had experienced the worst possible start when fresher Dave Cresswell limped off after a promising fourteen minutes. Much to their credit, his teammates maintained the initiative, Dan Fox surging from midfield at every opportunity. It was Fox himself who nearly opened the scoring on twenty minutes. His fiercesome hit from a short corner was well-blocked by Gareth Dunn. Former skipper Rob Woodhead also came close before the interval, spraying a shot just over the bar. The second half proved a full-blooded affair. Once Jesus’ Richard Blackburn scythed down a sprinting Nick Champness there was little doubting the intent and urgency in the Blues performance. Dave Close stepped forward with assurance from the back, with Andrew Armitage offering width and considerable threat out on the right. Little subbed on for Tom Bullock on fifty-one minutes, Kal El Wahab stung the ball left and there was the replacement to lash a splendid reverse-stick strike beneath the body of the Purley stopper. Still, the waspish visitors fought back and were rewarded with a sudden equaliser. Former England U21 international Nick Hayes executed the calm finish following a chopped cross from Mark Hardy. Oxford retook the lead within three minutes. Woodhead found space on the left, shooting across the face of the goal only for a remarkable lunge from Little to deflect the ball home. With Dunn drawn out of position, the two-goal striker turned provider to gift Solomon the third. The Christ Church player rolled the ball into the net to wrap up the three points for the Blues.

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There can be no doubt that Pascal Khoo Thwe’s From the Land of Green Ghosts (Flamingo, £7.99) is a good read. The plot is direct and interesting: village boy (from the rather obscure Burmese Padaung tribe) goes to the big city to study English, forges a friendship with a charmingly befuddled Cambridge don, boldly rebels against the brutal and autocratic government, flees into the jungle to escape persecution, then is rescued by the aforementioned charming Cambridge don and whisked off to England where he makes good as an English student. Compared to other memoirs of this kind, which belong in a genre largely dominated by Chinese women authors like Jung Chang and Xinran Xue with novels like Wild Swans and The Good Women of China, From the Land of Green Ghosts most certainly doesn’t lack the oomph factor in terms of eventfulness. In fact, the relatively unexplored territory in which this odyssey is set adds much to its charm. Its flaws though are flaws that can be seen to belong to the entire genre, the main one being a slight degree of artificiality in response to the political climate of the homeland.
We must give Pascal Khoo Thwe credit though – the idyllic childhood he describes, spent in Phekhon, provokes a veritable sensory overload. He speaks of a typical Burmese summer, where the “monotonous song of the lonely cuckoo terrorised the horizon” and “cicadas joined the cuckoo in the maddening chorus that was the hot season”. The language is beautiful and the prose sensitive. The quaint Burmese stories and tales his grandma Mu Wye only tells after being sufficiently massaged also provide the additional mystique of a culture where ghosts are a given a role and incorporated into the trivia of everyday life.
The author’s consciousness, which can be described as essentially Padaung, is composed of an interesting and quite unique blend of Catholic notions and animistic symbolism, a combination that comes through best when he responds to familiar and local climes. I was actually most moved and impressed by his evocation of his mundane existence in Phekhon – there seemed to be genuine feeling and experience behind his words. In fact, Pascal Khoo Thwe, overall, seems quite like a Burmese Ben Okri in his sophisticated portrayal of the symbolic mindset which sees the added concurrent dimension to daily events.
Once Pascal leaves Phekhon for Mandalay, the jungle, and then England though, his Padaung mentality and perspective undergoes a change in the new environment of the big city and the political turmoil; he falters, both as a character within the novel, and overall, as the author. His descriptions of political repression, for example, seem totally incongruous. In the rest of the novel he loses his signature Padaung mindset, seeming to respond exactly as any Western person would, and losing, thus, some of his authenticity. It is here, then, that the novel fails to captivate completely, even though its energetic plot and autobiographical tone make it truly impressive.
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