2nds Varsity Match Report 2022
On a freezing winter morning, the OUSC 2nds woke up ready to win Varsity. The metres had been swum, the alcohol ban (mostly) followed, and it was now time to show the tabs what we were made of.
First up was the 100IM: Katherine McKane and Emma Madden started off in style, posting huge times and a dominant 1-2 finish. Lukas Reimann’s lucky suit, a gift from ex-100IM world record holder Markus Deibler, led to a huge drop but sadly wasn’t enough to secure the win. Exciting fresher Oscar Jones came fourth. Oxford took control in 50 back, posting two 1-2 sweeps. For the women, it was Eve Hewett in 1st, with Katherine smashing her double in 2nd. For the Open swimmers, captain and professional hypeman Joel Fernandez won the 50 back in a huge PB, while 2nds legend Cameron MacDonald took 2nd in another PB. The 100 Freestyle was more of the same: Nina Holguin and Owen Lawton ran away with the victory in their respective categories, while Kate McLoughlin and Thejes Sundar, two of the nicest people on the squad, came 3rd and 2nd respectively. Fresh off the back of her victory in the 100 free, Nina dived in again and won the 50 fly, being pushed by Rosie Huck all the way. In the men’s race, Joel came 2nd in a time just off his PB, while 50 fly specialist (and the buffest man in 2nds) Arthur Chan came 3rd.
After this, there was a 5-minute break. During it, we found out that we were up by 19 points, which gave us confidence, but we knew that we had to keep fighting in order to secure the win.
The swimming began again with the toughest race in the programme: the 200 Freestyle. For the women, Rosie had a monstrous 11-second drop from trials, winning the event in a very quick 2:15.24, while captain and professional shouter Lucy Greenwood had an even bigger drop of 14 seconds on her way to 3rd. Both times were substantially quicker than the previous best Oxford times, showing the development of the squad in grand fashion. After them, Nic Steyn and Cam swam in the Open 200. Nic blasted a 2:06.29 on his way to 2nd, a time made even more impressive by the fact that he was a member of our new Social Squad at the start of the year, being unable to train for more than 20 minutes before cramping! Cam took it out hard, feeling the pain on the way back, but managed to equal his trials time, coming 4th. After that, it was the 50 Breast. Emma wanted first and it showed, with her swimming a powerful race, holding off a great 2nd 25 from Tina Macaulay; as for the Open category, Owen lost a close race, while resident sprint breaststroke whiz Marco Lembong came third. The final individual event was the splash ‘n’ dash, the 50 free: Claudia Wren came a close 2nd in 30.14, while Orla Supple was not far behind in 3rd. For the Open category, Chris Carnegie, who was originally selected for the 100, won in a sizzling 25.29, with recent recruit James Smith also breaking 26 seconds to take 3rd (25.64).
After counting the scores, we realised that we had a guaranteed victory so long as we didn’t get disqualified, so we went into relays with the aim of safe takeovers. Nevertheless, we still won 3 out of a possible 4 relays, only losing the Open 4x50m Freestyle relay despite a 25.5 lead-off by Thejes and a valiant anchor leg by Cam. It didn’t matter though, because we’d won with a score of 103-77!
This result was due to a few factors: firstly, the whole squad, who were not only motivated to do well, but were also a really great group of people who made training enjoyable! Secondly, our coach Sarah, who took time out of her degree to coach us and be a funny presence on poolside, and finally the Blues squad, who helped run the session on a Wednesday and were really supportive of what we wanted to achieve this year.
