We congratulate Jack E Organ (SNH/ORC, 22-24) on gaining a Blue for Oxford Athletics team.
On May 23rd, Iffley Road played host to this year’s Varsity athletics match. The track, which was newly resurfaced last summer, was ‘opened’ by the Vice-Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey in the morning. Each event saw two Oxford athletes go head-to-head against a brace of Cambridge athletes, with five points awarded to the winner, three points to second, two points to third and one point to fourth place; a points system aiming to reward the winning university in each event. Each university entered a pair of two-person teams per event (the main Blues team and a IIs team), meaning that there were four team trophies on offer (men’s and women’s Blues, men’s and women’s IIs), as well as the para-match, which saw 100m, 400m and 800m races take place.
By the time the first event (the non-scoring ‘open’ mile) got underway soon after 10.30am, it was already well over 20 degrees. Heat played a factor throughout the day, with the sun beating down heavily.
In the men’s Blues 800, Jack Organ was heavy favourite and had not hidden in the lead-up to the race that he was targeting the Varsity record of 1:48.5. The athlete who missed last year’s Varsity match because he was competing for GB led from gun to tape, running most of the second lap completely on his own, and came away with a time of 1:49.08, extremely close to the record. Despite missing it, this was a fantastic solo effort from the second-year undergraduate student, who will hopefully have next year’s event to have another crack at the record.
By the time the relays came around to draw proceedings to a close, three matches had already been wrapped up in Oxford’s favour, but the men’s Blues match hung in the balance.
By the time the relays came around to draw proceedings to a close, three matches had already been wrapped up in Oxford’s favour, but the men’s Blues match hung in the balance. The team took a slightly unexpected win in the 4 x 100m after a thrilling race won by around 0.6 seconds. The 4 x 400m brought the curtain down on the event, and the track-side support was fantastic, with athletes no longer needing to hold back on the shouting and the jumping around in order to save energy for events later in the day. Jack Organ was on the final leg and inherited the baton with a small lead from Cambridge’s Sol Inglis, who had beaten Jack earlier on in the Blues 400m. Jack stretched out the gap down the back straight but Sol closed on the top bend and looked to have the momentum coming round to the home straight. In a gripping final 100m, Jack held off the Cambridge athlete by 0.12 seconds to secure the win the men’s Blues match for Oxford, after a phenomenal triple shift (800, 400, 4×400).
Oxford therefore wiped the floor with four wins out of four.
