Cross country gives indoors athletics a try
This week Cross Country & Athletics ditched muddy hills to tackle some faster terrain - an indoor athletics track.
The state-of-the-art Lee Valley Athletics Centre is situated amidst a desolate wasteland in the far reaches of north London. After meeting at Beit Quad to collect some of the famous navy and blue running vests, the squad made the arduous journey via two tube lines, an overground and a bus.
Imperial was packed with a strong team consisting of everything - sprinters, throwers, jumpers and distance athletes.
In the men’s team, the highlights came in the middle distance events, where club-favourite James Millett took on both the 800m and the 1500m.
In an exhilarating 800m race in which he was leading the way for a good portion of the 4 laps, he narrowly missed out on a medal after being outsprinted by the LSE and Barts athletes, and finished in 2:03.94.
Undeterred and determined to bounce back in the longer 1500m - his favourite event - Millett went one better than last year to scoop a silver medal in a fantastic time of 4:15.17.
The star of the day was on the women’s side, with Kate Olding bringing home two golds and retaining a rather large 800m trophy for the two middle distance events.
She ran two masterfully tactical races, turning up the pace in the final laps to finish a huge 8 seconds clear in the 800m and 5 seconds clear of teammate Steph Hewitt in the 1500m.
Steph also comfortably brought home the silver in the 3000m - an impressive feat after racing in the two longest races of the day.
There was a number of stand-out performances from some first-years, with orienteering scholar Mihaly Ormay coming 11th and 12th in the 1500m and 3000m respectively.
Also doing it for the freshers was Alix Vermeulen who came an impressive 6th in the women’s 1500m and 14th in the long jump. Fellow women’s fresher Nina Rimsky came 10th in the 3000m.
Taking home the 6th and final Imperial medal of the day was Marta Van Ginkel Gonzalez, who leapt 9.36m in the triple jump.
Imperial ended the track events on a high, with top sprinter Mahmoud Barrie winning the infamous Mascot Race by outsprinting a griffin, polar bear, giant man and a cow being milked.
Overall, Imperial finished an impressive 4th out of the 15 teams in the LUCA Championships.
The competition continued at a joint social with a number of other London colleges, where there were very many games of beer pong.
It transpired that Imperial is stronger on the athletics track than at throwing table tennis balls into red cups of beer!
