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Wye Bother?This weekend saw the mighty RSM rugby machine - "The best looking team in IC" head down to Wye for a slice of the action, or was it just a "bit of slice." The trip began with an unscheduled tour of Docklands due to the bus driver’s novel route, the intelligent ones amongst us noting "Canary Wharf’s not that big is it?" We arrived in Wye having avoided potential ambush by slack-jawed yokels, only to find that we had nowhere to stay. Eventually we procured some rooms and started boozing. Friday night was Wye’s charity ball - the theme that astounded us simple London folk with its originality was "James Bond." The mobile disco on the other hand was outstanding, a combination of the 80’s and the village dance I saw in "Heartbeat" the other night. There was a band, they were... different (shite). We ask you where were the Wurzels ? The hospitality was great, special thanks must go to the ginger bird "Hannah" for single handedly trying to entertain the team. The crowd were then treated to a display of break-dancing by the African intercontinental dance champion Flo, which was nice. Then the crowd went wild, the Wurzels were played - then it was all over. We continued the partying for at least 10 minutes courtesy of some Germans. When we got up it was the 1st year who had done us proud, Pez - "I slept on the floor, honest!" was caught with a young lady in his room, her suspenders had gone. Ludo crept in at five to nine having reacquainted himself with a school friend. Jo Piggott managed to find a 25lb field gun but apparently it won’t bear his children. Anyone who thought they were spectating was in for a shock, we limbered up in classic RSM style, Dingo throwing up on the sidelines. The 1st half was dull, we were 5-0 up at half time courtesy of Flo’s lightning pace and go-faster silver boots. Early in the second half the wheel fell off our machine and Wye put 15 points past us, then another 5. With the prospect of the pub RSM stepped up a gear, culminating in two tries by Sir Alex "The one man fashion disaster" Fergusson and a big conversion from Big Dave. Someone tried to break Ludo but he survived. The final score was 20-17 in Wye’s favour. We will be back, and the RSM machine will be oiled with oil, not lager - even if only to join the badger-watching society. Personally I am gutted, I only saw one tractor and NO combines. There were some odd people from RAG floating about - it’s lucky RSM were there to fly the flag. Thanks to Neil "The Daddy" Davies for organising it, despite his claims of ‘abundant women’ being somewhat dubious. On The SlopesImperial college ski and snowboard club reprazents! Before we tell you what's been happening we need to plug the event of this term - our Christmas trip to Val Thorens from 14th to 23rd December, with accommodation, travel and lift pass for a measly £309. Come and sign up at our meeting on Monday in Southside Upper Lounge from 12.30 to 2pm, the deadline's 19th November. So far this term Imperial we have been very busy. We run weekly trips to High Wycome dry slope and compete in many weekend races. We have also, of course, been to the daily mail ski show (Olympia) and Board x in Battersea Park. Our first race of the season was Sunday 21st October. 17 mixed ski teams and 7 boarding teams turned up and Imperial 1, with the help of Ned (our race captain) racing both on skis and a board, managed to come 7th= in the skiing and 3rd in the boarding. Tom had a great first race, showing some old hands from other unis how it should be done. Our events are governed by the British Universities Snowsports Council (BUSC), run by students for students. This year their events include the Captain’s trip to Tignes (1-5 Nov), the BUDS (British University Dry Slopes Championships held in Edinburgh next weekend to which Tom and Ned are heading, the 3rd Event Christmas Trip to Val Thorens and the Main event at Easter - held in Les Arcs. Next up was the Captain's trip, this is an opportunity for all of the captains (from 27 unis) to get together with each other and the BUSC team and get to know each other before the BUSC events of the year to come. Ned went to reprazent Imperial, and did exactly that, getting into the semi-final of the dual slalom and winning the super final of the big air. This weekend saw the second round of the Kings race series (no, nothing to do with KCL) dual slaloms, this time held at Welwyn Ski Centre. IC 1 and 2 warmed up and prepared for the race, this is normally done by playing a few drinking games, necking a few shots then heading for a practice. By the end of the first round Imperial 1 had racked up 2 wins and 1 loss, oh yeah and 4 injuries between us, Will clocking the best with a broken thumb. With a slightly limited team we came a massive 2nd out of 20 teams, just beaten in the final by Southampton. IC 2nd came an excellent 10th, beating several of the first teams, and with great first time performances by Paul and Danielle. If you're interested in all of this drop us a line at ski@ic.ac.uk On A Roll
All 3 of IC's all-conquering badminton teams are now clearly at the top of their respective BUSA leagues. The Ladies team and Mens 2nds are unbeaten, with only the firsts letting us down with a draw last week. The Ladies team were at home against LSE this week. LSE were top of the league coming into this match since they had played one more match than IC. The captain (Emma) was worried it might be a tight match and kept trying to get the Mens 2nds to finish more quickly as we played first, even though we only started late due to a couple of people not turning up to take the club session, Emma, Vicky. The ladies however should not have worried as they easily bowled over the LSE ladies 8-1. Even this one game they got (the only one IC has lost), was not due to them out playing us, rather due to an unfortunate injury to one of our players. The Mens 2nds had the first of 2 crunch matches in the league this year. We came up against UCL. The match was very close and UCL proved to be the second best team in the league by some way. UCL's captain who we all took an instant disliking too due to his court manner and sportsmanship (lack of), put himself and his partner in as third pair when they were clearly the top pair. Due to an injury to Eric, I (Gavin) partnered Chan, with Spencer coming in to partner Ben. We played as the third pair and were beating the UCL captain 14-9, when our lack of practice together, shown by us being unable to close the set out, led us to losing 14-17. The second game we were rolled over 15-6. However our top 2 pairs won both there matches, and the UCL captain looked worried, especially when he was told this was not our strongest team. All 3 pairs went on to beat their top 2 pairs, but unfortunately none of us were able to beat their captain even though Nathan and Kevin took them to 3 sets. Last week saw a slight blip in IC's quest for all out dominance. The Mens 1st's could only draw against Reading. Due to this new BUSA format, a team only needs two good players to draw every match, thanks to the 4 singles games they play, and Reading had a couple of good players: one of them being a Gibraltar national player who is going to the Senior World Championships in June. Neither Mark nor Dave had much chance in that one, only getting 4 and 6 points respectively out of 30 (Best of 3 games to 15). The 2 doubles pairs had no trouble what so ever in dispatching Reading, so the team ended up with a respectable 4-4 draw. This still leaves them top of the league since their main rivals (Hertfordshire) slipped up against QMW. So even with a slight slip for the 1sts, IC are still dominant in London, played 13, won 12 drawn 1. On rolls the IC band wagon. Four Heads Of The RiverDespite multiple last minute crew changes due to illness the crews of Imperial College and Queens Tower (often combined for this event) had a very successful day on the Tideway. Unfortunately our top boat - a quad scull containing Steve Trapmore, Kieran West Luka Grubor (all Olympic Gold Medallists) and Ed Coode (World Champion) had to scratch their entry due to illness. However our second quad with Dan Marrett, Derek Holland, Dan Ouseley and Raphael were able to race, and did extremely well, finishing fifth overall (out of 517 crews). Every cloud has a silver lining, and Steve Trapmore was able to sub into the first IC/QT composite boat (a coxless four) to replace club captain Rick Fulton (who had also succumbed to illness). There are not many clubs where you can get stand-ins of his calibre! This crew (with Jason Keyes, Pete Holt and Angus Rivers) also did very well, finishing 25th overall and the third fastest four in the whole event. The next highest placing was earned by our all IC quad of Franco, Stoo Larner, Hugh Mackenzie and Alex "male model" Hussey, who finished 36th, another impressive performance. Extremely close behind them was our second coxless four of George Whittaker, Jon Weale, Nick Ablitt and Paul Anderson who came from the back of the field to take 38th place overall (and were the 5th fastest four), in a time which would have won the Senior 1 or 2 pennant. They were eligible for senior 1 but unfortunately had to race elite due to a crew change. The next crew in, our only coxed four, finished 80th overall (and 5th in their category). This consisted of cox Seb Pearce, Graeme Harrington, Lex Brun, Ed Johnson and Andy Wilkinson. Extremely close behind them was an IC/QT quad of Jimmy Wells, Alex, Andy Hodgson and Mark Hall, who finished 82nd overall. We then come to our only pennant win, with the IC/QT Women's quad of Bev Gough, Ali Barnes, Antonia Schmeiglow (Bumble) and Emma Williams who claimed the Senior 2 Quad Sculls category, finishing 136th overall. 40 seconds behind them was our second women's quad, an all IC combination of Helen Ellison, Tessa King, Kelly Cummins (fresh from doing the New York Marathon the week before) and Kathy Burgoine who finished 8th in their category and 213th overall. The final IC crew was a Women's Senior 3 coxed four with cox Ben Lau, Ali Elsey, Claire Pettitt, Jennie Lambert and Josie Bowen who finished 451st overall but 8th in their category. Overall there were a whole host of satisfying results, especially as we beat Oxford Brookes, our archrivals, in almost every category. Yacht ClubLast Friday eight intrepid yacht club members gathered outside Southside in freezing conditions for the first racing weekend of the year. The next two days were spent racing against twenty-seven identical yachts in the Solent. Sadly, what little wind there was on Saturday soon died entirely. As such only eight boats finished the race before the time limit, leaving us with a "did not finish" for the first race. As the wind then died entirely the organisers abandoned racing for the day. Sunday morning brought with it better racing conditions with more wind and less Baltic conditions. As only one race had been completed the previous day the organisers were intent on having three races and so shorter courses were set. We started the first race well, gaining a strong position. There we stayed for the duration of the race, and finished in a very respectable 7th place. Despite a slow start to the second race some good sailing and excellent tactical decisions rapidly pushed us up through the fleet allowing us to finish in 12th place. With the wind strengthening, our hopes were high for a good performance in the final race of the day. Despite a good start we found ourselves third from last before we had rounded the first mark. Undeterred, we pushed on and some superb tactical decisions had us cutting through the fleet with leaps and bounds. At one mark excellent teamwork and boat positing took us past six other boats in one fell swoop. Keeping up the performance, we finished in 11th place, a satisfying end to a very exciting weekend's racing. Yacht Club meet in Southside at 6pm on Mondays. < Front Page ¦ News ¦ Faculties Special ¦ Felix Talk ¦ Union Talk ¦ Letters ¦ Arts ¦ Film ¦ Music ¦ Books ¦ Coffee Break ¦ Sports ¦ Main Index > |