Although the sun was on holiday for most of the day, fun was definitely in abundance at the Students’ Union’s Sports Day at Chislehurst.
Over a hundred students came together to try their hand at the conventional, the ridiculous and the interesting, donning tracksuit bottoms and training kits in the quest for medals and trophies at Fun in the Sun on Thursday 10th June.
The 5-a-side Football Tournament was hotly contested, with teams from across the campuses giving their all for the intramural competition. Goals abounded, as did good spirits, and as the morning became the afternoon the tensions began to rise as the better teams upped their games. Daniel Siminov’s ‘Man Utd is Sh*t’ were unfortunately beaten 1-0 in the third and fourth place playoff to Shams’s ‘Superhero Team’, with the big man himself picking up the golden boot for six goals in five games. Cornelius Steele’s ‘Go-Getters’ had set the early pace, and having won a dramatic penalty shoot-out to move forward to the final were hit twice on the counter from QMFC, with Alex Mikolay’s six Leopards putting their opponents to the sword in the 2-0 final. Thanks to Mike Davis and Ian Cotton for refereeing the event.
Across the rest of the playing fields were a wide array of sporting participants, with Rob Schumacher’s Ultimate Frisbee, Volleyball, Mark Stephenson’s Kung-Fu and Tai Chi, Cricket and Archery particularly engaging during the first half of the day, before the QMSU Mini-Olympics took pride of place in front of the dramatic grandstand.
Heats for a number of the events were exciting, with the popular space hoppers proving as challenging as they were hilarious, incoming VPSA Dom Bell storming past the chasing pack with wonderful form andl technique. The egg-and-spoon race also had a number of twists and turns, while Vraj Domalip’s spectacularly long limbs were all over the place as he stormed home to win the skipping competition.
The three-legged race saw Domalip and Nas Tarmann working in perfect harmony, hopefully a sign of things to come for the Union over the next year, while competitors fell by the wayside, sometimes a little literally! And in the sprints, Schumacher annihilated the competition to storm home over 100m in lightning-quick time.
The wheelbarrow race was particularly eventful, with injuries arising and many couples seemingly well-practised at the inverse activities, but Nathaniel Alcaraz-Stapleton and Charlotte Southarn brought home the gold. Indeed, Nathaniel had medals of different colours in many of the events, and despite his body rejecting the activity at times, his heart and determination won him the Athlete of the Day award, embodying everything that QMSU stands for.
Despite a brief delay as one of the coaches broke down shortly before departure, everyone was on their way back shortly after 3 in the afternoon, beating the rain (just) and filled with merriment, mirth and a sense of success from what we hope to be the first annual QMSU Sports Day at Chislehurst.
A big thanks should go out to Susan Cantello from SCS for contributing prizes and the inflatable Bungee Run, and to groundstaff Jon and Bob who have worked tirelessly throughout the year to ensure the pitches are as well kept as possible, and they were again top-notch on the day.