HYDE PARK RELAYS
James Chettle
Just a week on from the blizzards of BUCS, the Hareys took to the roads on the hottest day of 2009 to that point. Unprecedented interest led to James Kelly having to make a last minute entry for a second Cambridge men’s team for the event. Polly had a harder time getting a ladies team together (it was Valentine’s day after all), and on emailing the list for a fourth lady, got more responses from guys volunteering to run in drag than (actual) ladies. Despite the frantic last minute search, a relatively strong team of Lauren Barklie, Naomi Taschimowitz, Hannah Darcy and Keen was assembled.
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Keen led off for the women, and steered the team to third place when Barklie took over. Barklie continued her good recent form for a quick leg before handing off to Darcy. Another quick leg followed, and when Taschimowitz took over Cambridge seemed to have a real chance of a medal. Unfortunately, Bristol’s B team had running their third and fourth legs two runners who had also run in their victorious A team. Thus despite a pacy run from the Trinity fresher, it was Bristol B who took the final medal position. Nevertheless, fourth place represented a fine performance from the Cambridge ladies, beating strong teams from Manchester and London (not to mention St. Mary’s who were nowhere to be seen this year!)
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The Men’s A team were led off by James Kelly, renewing a rivalry with former Oxford runner and triple Varsity Match winner Fraser Thompson. Oxford’s representative in the first leg was Michael Osborne, and though Kelly was narrowly beaten by Thompson he had opened up a 45 second gap on the Oxford team. Phil Scard was next to take to the road being chased down by Oxford’s Andy Heyes. A solid run from the Cambridge veteran ensured the team remained in touch with the leaders as Will Mackay took over. A quick third leg from Mackay saw Cambridge move up one place to third. He handed off to Chris Bannon, who maintained his pace remarkably well after a very quick first kilometre and ensured that Matt Grant and Matt Armstrong were in contention to chase down the final two Bristol runners. Bristol had put all their strength in their top four, and surrendered the lead to Oxford on the third leg. With a lead of over two and half minutes ahead of Cambridge however, it was now a question of whether Grant and Armstrong had enough in them to chase their runners down and claim the silver medal. Grant’s quick penultimate leg saw Bristol’s lead dip under a minute and a half, and a rapid anchor leg from Armstrong saw him pass Bristol’s runner with a few hundred metres remaining. Cambridge claimed their highest position in a decade and the team set Cambridge’s fastest ever time over the current course.
The B team was led off by Tom Heslop, who put in a stunningly fast time to put Cambridge in 12th, opening up a comfortable lead over an Imperial team led off by Rich Mathie. Andy Collier, Aidan Reilly and Adam Bennett all recorded quick times with Bennett taking a minute out of Imperial’s fourth runner to leave James Chettle in a position to give Cambridge a narrow advantage going into the last leg. Liam Richardson put in a quick final leg, but was narrowly beaten by Imperial’s anchor, as Rich Mathie managed to score one over his former teammates.
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As always, the post–race food was well received. But more importantly, Cambridge’s success on the road, with the men’s A team claiming the silver medal, seemed to indicate that preparations for the track season were off to a solid start.
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