Hyde Park Relays 2006
By Aidan Brown
On Saturday February 11th, 19 nervous Hareys huddled together on the London Underground for well over ten minutes, before emerging into the slightly overcast sunlight of Hyde Park Corner. We walked the course rather slowly, stopping off to let the women's captain feed almonds to tame squirrels. Back at the bandstand the first leg runners started warming up, whilst those running the last legs settled down for a long hour's wait. Soon, the men marched up to the startline, puffed up with tense expectation, only to be informed of a five minute delay. Five minutes later we were off. Ulrich Paquet cut off at a cracking pace, right at the front of the pack, leaving B team runner Aidan Brown plodding along behind. The pack was still quite tight as we passed under the bridge, but sweeping back past the fountains at the far end, the field opened up. With three kilometres of the 5.144km course still to go, we took a sharp turn up away from the lake, and dashed back down the shallow incline towards the start. However, we were swept off again towards the other end of the park, cutting off to the right at the gates, and after about a kilometre of meandering back and forth between the trees, finally returned for a 400m dash down the home straight, where the second leg runners waited, bouncing expectedly from toe to toe. Rich Mathie took off for the A team in 13th position and ended his leg in 15th. Si Rutherford followed soon for the B team, chased by Justin Bronder "The Wonder" from Oxford all the way round. He was just beaten, however, in a dramatic sprint finish. Pat Ward (16:18), running the final leg for the A team, takes the prize for fastest Cambridge leg overall, bringing the team to 4th place overall, just a minute behind Dublin, Oxford and the favourites St. Mary's. James Gill (18:10), meanwhile, taking over from Phil Scard (17:47) for the B team, threw in a ridiculously fast start, and still managed a pretty nifty sprint finsh. James handed over to Richard Mathie (18:30), who, on his second leg of the day brough Cambridge B home in 13th place, just 8 seconds ahead of LSE. Oxford University's 3rd and 2d teams (in the wrong order) trailed in two minutes behind. Meanwhile in the women's race, captain Catharine Wood, with the fastest Cambridge women's time of 12:59 for the 3km brought the first team into 11th place after the first leg. Lisa Gubler, in her first run for the University, ran a fast leg for the women's B team, to put them in 23rd place. As the race continued we saw a swift leg from Laura Dixon (13:50) who has recovered from a disappointing performance in BUSA last week to put the women's B team in 17th place, just 30 seconds ahead of the Oxford A team. Helen Mort (13:10), meanwhile, maintained the A team's 11th place position with a very strong run, just seconds behind her captain's time. St. Mary's again won the day in style, taking gold and silver in well under 50 mins. Throughout the races we were cheered on by crowds of jovial tourists and peeved push chair pushers. The group of mad Dutch peple, waving their arms in the air with a long drawn out'whoooOOOooo' whenever a runner passed were slightly disconcerting, but only added to the friendly atmosphere. This popular relay has been run in Hyde Park for 57 years, and still attracts university teams from all over the country (far flung Edinburgh and Dublin took bronze in the women's and men's races respectively) and across the continent.