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FVM Article – Double Victory for Oxford
Bilen Ahmet
On Sunday 5th November Oxford kicked off the Inter-Varsity Athletics season with a vehement victory at Cambridge’s Wilberforce Road, but it wasn’t all bad news for the Light Blues.
Garrett Johnson opened the day with an impressive event victory for Oxford in the hammer throw with his teammate helping secure an Oxford 1-2 in the first event of the day. Louise "Splitter" Steele, formerly of Cambridge, somewhat controversially won the women's event with what was (for her) a disappointing throw of just over 29m. Last year she was Jesus College women’s captain, and this year she was proud to see that Helen Maduka, another Jesus athlete, came second.
At the other end of the track Sarah Williams, who was abundantly happy throughout the day, dominated the women's pole vault. She achieved the Blues standard in her first competition for Cambridge, improved on the match record by 70cm, and almost certainly would have done more still had she not been required at the long jump. The men's event was a well-fought battle between Alex Bates and Tim Henshaw - both of Cambridge - who disposed of their Oxford counterparts shortly after starting. In the end they both achieved a height of 3.10m, but Bates won on count back. It was a great result for Cambridge, but unfortunately it served only to cancel out Oxford's lead from the hammer throw, and due to the fact that the pole vault tends to run on Oxford had already made some more gains in the 400m hurdles and in the men’s 800m.
Lucy Spray came back – perhaps too soon – from an injury she had sustained a few weeks ago to run a gutsy race in the women’s 400m hurdles. She stuck closely behind Oxford’s hurdler and drove on in the home straight to finish not far short of victory. Unfortunately, this event seemed to be too much for her and she could not compete in the 400m. She’s certainly very talented and will be one to watch in the future. In both the women’s and the men’s event Cambridge finished 2nd and 3rd, which meant that Oxford gained a point advantage in each competition.
Next on the track was the women’s 800m, and both Cambridge athletes were off to a storming start, pulling away from the Oxford girls by the end of the first bend. They led the whole way by a considerable distance, making this a very comfortable Cambridge 1-2. Sadly the same could not be said of the men’s race, which was very tight towards the finish. Both of our guys stuck close behind their runners with Sam Dobin holding onto second for the first lap, but toward the end of the second lap Oxford began to pull away. Chawan Coulsting tried his utmost to hold on, pushing all the way to the finish, but was unable to even take third. It was certainly good to see a new athlete put so much effort in against strong opposition.
Back to the throws, and back to Garrett Johnson. To call this 60m discus thrower a beast would be an understatement, and it’s no surprise that he won the competition with a throw significantly beyond the Blues standard. Oh, and did I mention he set a match record? Oxford managed another 1-2 in this heavy throw, though their women only managed 1st and 4th. Clearly all the best throwers have gone to Oxford, though Louise Steele surprisingly finished last in this event (poor show for last year’s squad leader), though this demonstrates that at least our women stand a chance.
At the same time as the discus was the women’s long jump. 3rd and 4th were close, with Oxford winning that battle, but Liz Murphy of Oxford managed an impressive jump of 5.24m taking the victory from Sarah Williams, who had come straight from the pole vault to jump just under 5m. She was later commended by Achilles (the joint team of current and former Cambridge and Oxford athletes) for an outstanding day’s performance. After this result and the 100m it was clear that Oxford were getting quite a lead in the women’s competition.
Though it may be the shortest event the 100m always seems to get a bigger crowd than most, and today both the Cambridge and Oxford supporters were keen to see who would come out top in the ultimate test of speed. After an amazing start the women’s race was reduced to a very fast Oxford runner and a tight chasing pack. It was a clear victory for Oxford, but Debbie Scanlan managed to push back the other Oxford runner to third in a close finish. In the men’s event the start line was littered with Cambridge guests, as well as having a Cambridge scorer quite bemusingly wearing a white t-shirt. It was another win for Oxford, whose runner was the only competitor using blocks, and who had purportedly recorded a time of 10.9 (that’s Blues standard in case you don’t know) two weeks earlier in Australia. However, the Cambridge sprinters managed to take both 2nd and 3rd to leave Oxford with only a single point gain.
The steeplechase is always a gruelling event, and the pain was easy to see on the faces of all the runners by the end of this race. Perhaps all Cambridge could take from this loss (Oxford took both the top places comfortably) is that our water hazard managed to bring one of the Oxonians to his knees on his last lap. Indeed he was completely soaked from head to toe, leading to desperate calls for a towel in the cold weather.
Oxford continued to dominate the track in the women’s 400m, which was a dramatic reversal of our previous success in the 800m. Due to late injury we were unable to field our top athlete and the dark Blues capitalized on this. The men’s event was closer run, though Will Rice tensed up to leave him in third, with David Nefs of Cambridge unable to clinch victory ahead of his teammate. Rice would later run a full two seconds faster in the relay; perhaps I put too much pressure on him by saying that I’d post a photo of him if he won.
Now it was time to bring out the big guns: Cambridge put two scorers and two guests into the men’s long jump competition, and they all wiped the floor with Oxford’s best jumper. Ayo Adeyemi won the event with a jump just over 6m, though this was his third jump after two no-jumps, and Alex Bates made another strong appearance as a guest for Cambridge with a jump of just under 6m. As Oxford veteran Sean Gourley is no longer eligible for Varsity selection and Cambridge’s best jumper is only in his second year this certainly bodes well for this year’s main Varsity Match in which all the jumps should be dominated by both Cambridge men’s teams. Perhaps this is our best hope of making up lost ground on the heavy throws.
James Kelly – one of the new stars of the cross-country scene – had an easy first two laps in the men’s 1500m. He obviously didn’t want to embarrass his opponents and left it late to speed up, but still had an easy victory. Kelly’s later dominance of the 3k would silence any Oxford claims to the contrary. He’s a very gifted runner, despite his own claims that he is presently unfit. He’s definitely one to watch at the upcoming Cross-Country Varsity Match, and then later in the year at the Athletics Varsity Match, where he will be joined by – amongst others – former rival and present college-mate Will George. Cambridge should be taking home a lot of points with such strong distance runners in their present line up.
Though Oxford showed no great talent in the high jump, finishing with heights of 1.70m and 1.65, the Cambridge freshmen high jumpers seemed to be absent today, leaving us with 3rd and 4th. However, with Cambridge’s best jumpers already better than Oxford’s and still present this event should be a walkover come Varsity.
The 110m hurdles was a very close race. Andreas Petsas was neck-and-neck with his Oxford counterpart from the very start and only lost out due to an unfortunate collision with the final hurdle. He was followed closely by teammate Tom Stoker, but this still meant that Oxford gained another point advantage.
I’ll give you three guesses at who won the shot put, but you’ll only need won. Garrett Johnson stepped up to another easy victory, another match record, and another Blues standard. His best throw was in excess of 18m, and was about 5m further than the Blues distance. If you haven’t seen him, then you may also be shocked to learn that this was quite far short of his personal best. He put Oxford’s second thrower to shame, though in turn he proved far superior to our own shot putters. Perhaps it wouldn’t have looked so bad if our new star thrower Jet Theriac had unfortunately been absent. He may not be a match for Johnson - his friend and training partner from the US – but he’s the second best heavy thrower in Oxbridge, and Theriac should be looking for victory in the Varsity match hammer throw.
Erica Bodman won the high jump for the light Blues with a Blues standard in her first competition against Oxford. This event was a clear victory for the Cambridge women.
What more can I say than that James Kelly had an outstanding victory in the 3k? He put considerable distance between himself and the Oxford runners to win comfortably, and apparently he didn’t even break a sweat. John Redshaw brought home second to give Cambridge a stylish 1-2. There was more domination in the 3k for the Cambridge women. Polly Keen, who certainly lives up to her name, ran at a very fast pace for the entire race, lapping one of the Oxford girls and leading an easy Cambridge 1-2. She had earlier done well in the pole vault, which is quite an unusual choice of event for a distance runner, and soon after this race had finished she ran a very fast anchor leg in the 4*400m.
Oxford took an early lead in the women’s 4*400m relay, and after our second leg runner put in too much effort off the start they pulled away to a distance that even Polly Keen’s amazing last leg could not cut down. In the men’s 4*400m relay, however, Cambridge were dominant from early on. Pole-vaulter Tim Henshaw led the light Blue scoring team from the first leg, and a slow changeover was not enough for Oxford to get back. In fact, at one point it looked like our guest team could take second place, but the dark Blues’ third runner proved a little too fast and our other pole-vaulter, Alex Bates, was unable to catch them on the last leg. Sam Dobin, Chawan Coulsting and Will Rice made up the rest of the scoring team, who had a comfortable victory. Peter Prescott, John Redshaw and Jacob Cotton were the other guest runners.
Oxford may have won both the men’s and women’s competitions at the Freshers’ Varsity Match, but with the loss of some of their major athletes, and the retention of a lot of strong Cambridge competitors, the other two Inter-Varsity athletics matches look like they should be close, but with Cambridge as favourites to take home the trophies this year.
Appeared in Varsity 7th Nov 2006
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