It’s AUG finals time. Gold medals are won and lost on courts and fields are plagued with course voices and broken bodies. This competition is one where only the strong will survive.
We had already sewn up the men’s and women’s athletics pennants, by a long way. Our women’s taekwondo team secured the overall women’s pennant earlier in the week. Thursday also saw the cyclists establish themselves as the dominant university cycling club in Australia by taking out the men’s and women’s overall points tally. The Sydney University team took out the overall cycling champions honour for the second year in a row, which is a sign of the dominance to come. A massive achievement for a club that continues to go from strength to strength. With the AUG set for Sydney next year I can only see this club putting more distance between them and their nearest rivals in 2014.
With athletics and cycling aside, we had eleven teams in contention for gold medals today. Both men and women badminton teams had a great week. The men needed to win their semi-final against Melbourne to make the gold medal play-off. Unfortunately they went down 3-2 in a tight match, however were able to recover to take home the bronze. The women’s team came up against their old foes Melbourne in the final and like the men, went down in a very tight match 3-2. Silver was their reward for yet another strong performance by one of our most consistently successful teams at Australian Uni Games.
The women basketball team were set to take on Monash for the gold. After defeating Monash in the pool games, our girls were quietly confident they could repeat the performance and head for their third gold in four years. However they found themselves in trouble from the start and at one point were 16 points down. A sterling fight back was to ensue and the girls clawed back to within three points. With the final buzzer clearing we threw up a last gasp shot from the perimeter to tie the game – ball hits ring and bounces out – silver to Sydney Uni. Another valiant effort from a very talented group who continue to improve.
Our talented women’s football team needed extra time to beat Melbourne 4-1 for the gold medal. The handball squad made the semi-finals only to just come up short against a strong University of Technology Sydney (UTS) side. They finished fourth after a tight loss to University of Queensland for the bronze medal.
The men’s tennis team were another victim to the Melbourne tidal wave in their semi-final, being relegated to the bronze medal play-off. They then lost a close tie to UTS to finish fourth, which is a great result for a very undermanned team this year.
One of the great success stories of the week is our touch football squad. The women took top honours at an AUG for the first time in a long while. The mixed team lost their final in a very close match against James Cook University. The men also had a successful week claiming fourth spot after a very strong start to their campaign. The women’s side were very dominant and this result has been in the making for a number of years.
The T20 boys batted well in their gold medal match but dropped a few catches in the field to hand the gold medal over to University of NSW. Our female volleyballers made the semi-finals but went down to a well drilled UTS side. The girls regathered however to take home the bronze medal after thumping Griffith Uni.
The final gold medal games of the day were both of our water polo sides. The women were facing a red hot Macquarie side while the men had to wrestle with a stacked University of Western Australia (UWA) side. The women played well to get to the final and were just overpowered by Macquarie’s more experienced roster 10-5. The men fell agonisingly short of gold going down by three goals
Sydney University finished in third spot overall behind Monash (8 gold) and eventual winners Melbourne (10 gold). We also had a massive 62 athletes selected in Green and Gold teams, which is a huge result and great achievement for these students.
