BUCS CROSS COUNTRY 2009
Helen Rollins and James Chettle
‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people’– Bill Bowerman
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We couldn’t really have picked a more apt T–shirt slogan for the occasion. BUCS Cross Country 2009 was being held at the end of a week where Britain had been brought to a standstill by the worst snow in decades. Nevertheless, thirty of Cambridge’s finest athletes made the epic trip through snow and blizzards to Aberdeen. Having put hours into organising the trip, Tim Pattison followed the hareys up to their first stop at Peterborough where he was thanked for his efforts with an all–on–Tim snowball ambush. Polly Keen, not renowned for her throwing accuracy, somehow managed to land the devastating shot between the eyes. We do have a habit of showing our gratitude in strange ways. From Peterborough, it was direct on to Scotland but seven hours into the journey, the team got the news that the BUCS Cross–country Championships 2009 had been cancelled. Aside from the course being declared unfit for a race, it turned out that the health and safety personnel required to be present for such an event were unable to make it to Aberdeen. However, there was never any doubt, given that over twenty universities had already arrived, that the Saturday would see some racing action. And so it was decided to hold an unofficial university race, the BUCS Banter Race.
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No marshals manned the course, as health and safety absolved themselves of responsibility, so hundreds of runners, men and women, marked out the route as a warm up lap. All athletes set off together with the girls completing two laps and the men completing three. Top light blue performances came from Helen Rollins, third in the female event. Captain James Kelly finished fourth for the men, ahead of all of his Oxford rivals. Naomi Taschimowitz finished an admirable eighth, as Cambridge’s second placed woman, and Will Mackay was twentieth for the men. The entire team performed superbly, with the men finishing second behind St Mary’s College, and gained some measure of revenge for the Varsity Match by finishing ahead of their dark blue counterparts. Hopefully, next year the hard–core students won’t have to take the situation into their own hands after BUCS cancels the highly anticipated event over a mere couple of inches of snow!
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Having taken down Oxford in the Banter Race, it was time to demolish them in a snowball fight. Oxford seemed to focus most of their attention on Polly Keen. Nevertheless, Cambridge’s superior tactics (employing the catenaccio–style system of defensive solidity and hitting Oxford on the counter) saw them to a second victory of the day over their dark blue rivals.
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A big thank you goes to Tim Pattison, Mark Coley, James Gill and Robin Brown for organising the trip and thanks, also, to the club’s sponsors Teach First.
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