Teddy Hall Relays 2024 report
Just when we thought Hilary Term couldn’t get any better for OUCCC, Wednesday of 8th week proved us all wrong.
Teddy Hall Relays was back and better than ever!
In stark contrast to last year, the sun was shining as hundreds of runners descended on Iffley Road. Students put off work, employees took annual leave and Joe Morrow put on his hi vis vest, as 153 teams arrived for this momentous 4 leg relay.
Starting and ending at Iffley Road track, the 7k route consists of*:
(1) A 200m rep (ideally a PB).
(2) 3-4km of lovely running along the canal.
(3) A choppy and lactic filled visit to Christchurch meadow.
(4) Hanging on for dear life as Alex Bampton screams at you to get off the road as you cross Magdalen Bridge.
(5) Returning to the track to hand over the baton to your teammate.
*Unless your name is Matt Kunov, then skip (5) and repeat (1)-(4) three more times.
The results:
OUCCC retained both the men’s (Naphtali Moulton, Ethan McColgan, Jared Martin, Jonathon Cornish) and women’s (Catherine Westhead, Molly Hey, Alex Gandee, Anouska Brooks) titles.
(The men’s win, in particular, did not come without drama: In one of the stories of the day, Jared (leg 3) ran past the still marshalling Jonny (supposed to be leg 4) at Christchurch meadow. Why was Jonny still there? We will never know. But Jared screamed in disbelief and poor Jonny must have been mortified as he ran along the High Street with Jared to make it to the start line. Thankfully, he made it and somehow anchored the Oxford team to victory in his tracksuit bottoms and mileage shoes. All of this was made even more impressive by the fact that Jonny had completed a hard track session a few hours earlier.)
The Mixed race was won by Headington RR (Sam Garforth, Tom Green, Esther Pullen, Emily Strathdee).
In a near repeat of 2023, the College title taken by Corpus Christi (Matt Fuller, Madeline Williams, Ben Fuller, Chris Parker), who this year rebranded with the team name ‘Corpus Crispy’ in honour of their speedy new fresher on the anchor leg.
Jesus (Mared Owen, Louis Bilboul, Rhiannon Paton, Jack Forrest) comfortably took the mixed College crown, while ‘The Queens of Teddy Relays’ (Clara Hartley, Molly Skeil, Bryony Fishpool, Naomi Kingston) stormed home for women’s College victory.
Finally, the most important results of the day were of course the fastest individual legs (unfortunately for OUCCC ‘good egg’ Joe Morrow, this joke fell rather flat at the awards ceremony). Much to the dismay of Naph, RAF’s Conor Pacey ran the fastest men’s leg of the day in 21.40. The fastest women was Emily Strathdee of Headington RR in 24.23.
Now, if all of this talk of running has you feeling peckish, don’t worry- Sam and Anika have you covered.
Whilst we were all enjoying ourselves running in the sunshine, our amazing social secs (and soon to be captains!) were slaving away making a copious amount of sandwiches for the post race tea in St Edmund’s Hall. These went down a treat as hungry runners refuelled and medals were awarded.
Big thanks must go to all of our wonderful marshals and to Joe Morrow and Esther Jones for organising this hugely successful event. The final baton is now passed on to the 2025 THR reps. One of whom, a certain fresher Alex Hammond, was heard saying he was “very nervous” and “didn’t know how big this event was”. Don’t worry Alex, you’ll be fine.
