------------------------------------------------------- BUSA Cross Country, Leeds (05/02/05) ------------------------------------------------------- Mens A Race Pos Name Time 5 Fraser Thompson 35:23 21 Jon Blackledge 36:19 24 Ben Moreau 36:25 30 Jerome Brooks 36:55 40 Nick Talbot 37:41 62 Martin Bishop 39:06 Pos Team Points 1 St. Mary's 30 2 Birmingham 31 3 Leeds 68 4 Oxford 80 Womens Race Pos Name Time 25 Lucia Gibson 24:04 37 Emily Crowley 24:29 53 Rachel Deegan 24:57 67 Emily Ferenczi 25:24 80 Eve Bugler 26:07 85 Abi Sheals 26:10 95 Laura Kyte 26:24 129 Zoe Lundy 27:33 149 Helen Wright 28:19 159 Rachel O'Neill 28:35 Pos Team Points 1 Loughborough 12 2 St. Mary's 24 3 Birmingham 35 4 Birmingham 79 5 Oxford 115 Mens B Race Pos Name Time 8 David Bruce 26:56 42 Ben Clarson 28:59 51 Stephen Granger-Bevan 29:16 54 Sam Rowlands 29:28 55 Alan Chetwynd 29:30 66 Justin Bronder 30:00 69 Ian Hewitt 30:04 76 Steve Marshall 30:16 83 Paul Harrison 30:35 91 Thomas Stevens 30:51 117 Will Unsworth 31:54 127 James Arnold 32:31 128 Andreas Stradis 32:32 129 Vikram Mittal 32:37 131 Doron Schultziner 32:38 133 Jamie Darling 32:49 141 Jonny Green 33:24 160 Patrick Grant 35:32 Pos Team Points 1 Birmingham 13 9 Oxford 155 15 Oxford 266 25 Oxford 418 30 Oxford 521 Report
Both Oxford's men and women narrowly missed out on team medals at the BUSA Cross-country Championships in Leeds last Saturday. The teams looked to be at full strength in the weeks leading up to the championships but several late injuries and illnesses proved costly and gave the teams too much to do in what was to be the highest quality field ever seen at these Championships.
The men had hoped that a full strength team, along with a bit of luck, could even compete for the team Gold, but a serious bout of food poisoning to Nick Talbot, who was selected for the British team at last year's World Student Championships put paid to these aspirations. Fraser Thompson challenged the lead group for the first half of the race, before falling back slightly and eventually finishing 5th. Thompson had also felt unwell in the days preceding these championships and must also have felt the effects of his fine 2nd place on an extremely tough course just the weekend prior to this race. There was then a significant gap to the next Oxford man, while the St. Mary's and Birmingham teams packed in their scorers, leaving Oxford fighting with Leeds for 3rd place. Jon Blackledge was the next scorer for Oxford, finishing in a solid 21st place. He was narrowly ahead of men's captain Ben Moreau in 24th, and Jerome Brooks who closed the scoring in 30th. Nick Talbot finished in 40th, and Martin Bishop in 62nd. Once the final scores were calculated, it turned out that Oxford had been beaten into 4th by just 12 points. However, to finish 4th in these championships was no disgrace by any means, and the fact that Oxford managed to beat Loughborough, who haven't been out of the team medals for several years, showed the strength of the field and the Oxford team.
The women did extremely well to finish 5th, and were actually the 4th university as the 4th team was a Birmingham B team. Even with a full strength team the girls would have to have pulled out something incredible to reach a team medal, as Loughborough, Birmingham and St. Mary's all had their 3 scorers inside the top 15. This is an amazing reflection of the talent at these universities and one that is practically impossible to mirror with the set-up and academic standards that Oxford owns. However, to be the first non-lottery funded university is quite an achievement and to think it was done without our first two finishers at the Varsity match shows that we have strength in depth as well as talent. Alice Beverly, club captain, started the race but never looked likely to finish, carrying a hamstring tear.; while Courtney Birch was looking strong just inside the top twenty until an asthma attack cut short her race in the latter stages. This left Lucia Gibson, a fresher from Worcester, as the first scorer, running a fantastic race and easily her best at Oxford, to finish 25th. Emily Crowley was next for Oxford in 37th, and another fresher, Rachel Deegan, closed the scoring trio in 53rd.
Dave Bruce ran extremely well in the men's B race to finish 8th, and was one of only two runners inside the top twenty that weren't at Birmingham or Loughborough, the other being at St. Mary's. For Oxford to be placed in the top 5 universities on both the male and female front is something to be extremely proud of, and even more so when one takes the injuries and illness of our premier runners into account.
The party was in the lovely Bar Med in the Leeds town centre and illness/injury and unwillingness to go out had further decimated our troops. We arrived early on after almost forcing Dewy to get £200 out of his bank; a desperate flailing arm deflecting Ben’s efforts at the last minute. Once inside the aforementioned hot-spot, OUCCC descended on the bar to realise that turbo-shandys were on offer. These were excellent ammo for all drinking games, and soon the age-old classic Name Game was in full flow. Well, actually it wasn’t. Half those present were either not drinking/not paying attention and some of those that were obviously thought the rule was "Avoid-drink-at-all-costs while you think" (Darling). Dewy couldn’t stop laughing while playing it and so spilt most of it down his crotch, for which he was rewarded with a nipple cripple. Paddy got gradually more and more agitated that he wasn’t going to get absolutely shit-faced and so we switched to a game of 21’s. To my right 1,2 was pretty much all Courtney could understand as her J2O started to take full effect, and it’s incredible how many times she leant over to Wish and whispered "I said four-skin!!", giggling manically. Wish then suggested that perhaps he and Courtney should "try some time apart", to which she agreed that perhaps it was best if she let him go to the toilet on his own.
After a few hours of gentle inebriation, the Tabs arrived and OUCCC escaped to the dance floor. Laura "I’ve only had one Smirnoff Ice - Honest" Kyte led the troops through the regulation cheese-fest while Paddy got bored of queuing and so just thought he may as well buy 23 pints at once to save time. Brucey refused to spend £1.50 for any drink and threatened to get his dad to buy the chain-bar unless they charged him more. They compromised on giving him expensive Sambuca, which seemed to be acceptable. It all goes a little blurry at this point until the Proclaimers’ ‘I would walk 500 miles was thrown on’. This was too much for most to take and caused a mass exodus with only the hard-core drunkards staying any longer.
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