Triumphant Teddies run circles around rivals
Worcester’s runners can’t keep the pace at Port Meadow.
Cross Country Cuppers
Teddy Hall win men’s
Mansfield win women’s
An impressive turnout of budding athletes met at Port Meadow on Saturday for the annual cross country Cuppers competition. The men’s competition had 67 competitors representing 24 colleges, whereas the women’s event was a smaller affair with just 22 contenders. Such a turnout was particularly commendable given the absence of many potential Blues who were competing at the National Cross Country Relays.
Teddy Hall dominated the men’s 10 kilometre race, providing the greatest number of competitors from one college. Triumph for Hall was predictably secured early on when Alan Chetwynd stormed to victory in a stunning time of 36 minutes. James Hogan was just 37 seconds behind Chetwynd to secure an important one two for Teddy Hall.
Scoring 133 points between them, Chetwynd and Hogan gave Teddy Hall an awesome advantage, reflected in the final score of 269 points to Teddy Hall, compared with the 232 points achieved by Oriel in second place. Notable performances from freshers Ian Kimpton and Tucker Murphy gave them fourth and fifth place finishes behind Tom Douglas, who ran a solid race coming third for the second consecutive year.
All competitors pushed themselves to the limit with several instances of blistering sprint finishes. Thomas Stevens, Justin Bronder and Dave Woods pushed hard to the finish line coming sixth, seventh and eighth within just ten seconds of each other. The match however, was perhaps a disappointing result for the Worcester men, who were relegated to third position, a staggering 128 points behind their winning score from last year.
In the women’s six kilometre event, Worcester’s Lucia Gibson ran admirably to win the race in just 27.29 minutes, comfortably ahead of Lizzy Braithwaite and Emily Firenczi. Firenczi is a veteran Varsity athlete and if selected for the Blues match, will be competing in her 6th Varsity having previously competed for the Yabs as well as the Blues.
Once more it was Teddy Hall with the biggest contingency in the women’s race, but numbers alone were not enough to defeat the three Mansfield athletes, who between them won cuppers with 66 points. Mansfield athlete Braithwaite came second in this year’s race, showing a marked improvement on her performance last year where she finished in tenth. Her college team mates, freshers Sarah Pemberton and Katy Moore, scored valuable points coming fifth and sixth respectively.
Yet again Worcester college suffered a frustrating defeat, coming a close second behind Mansfield and losing by just 4 points despite Lucia’s high scoring victory. The outstanding performances by freshers in both the men’s and women’s events proffer great optimism for a strong Varsity team.
OUCCC Captain Patrick Wallace voiced his confidence in the team, declaring “Cross Country running at Oxford is in really great shape, and with a fully fit team we could take on any University in the UK.”.
17th Nov 2005