In 2018 Sydney University competed in the first ever iteration of UniSport Australia’s Div 1 Nationals.
The competition saw the top 10 unis across 33 competitions compete against one another, vying for championship glory in their individual sports, and overall.
With one of the largest University groups at the competition, the University of Sydney sent 410 athletes and 25 staff to the Gold Coast. This equated to 40 teams (male, female and mixed) who competed across 26 sports. The group was led by team captains, Alex and Issie. Alex (Baseball) is a D. Medicine student and Issie (Netball) is a B. Commerce (Liberal Studies) student. Both are members of the University’s Elite Athlete Program.
In the 26 sports contested, Sydney University came away with eight pennants, six silver and eight bronze medals, plus a number of individual gold, silver and bronze medals in sports such as swimming, fencing, table tennis, cycling and taekwondo.
See our day-by-day coverage below, and read the full wrap here.
The University of Sydney has had an exceptionally strong start to its first ever Div 1 Nationals campaign.
Before the official competition week even begun, Sydney University was named women’s champions, men’s champions and overall competition champions in Kendo, with a number of standout individual performances contributing to the triple-honour.
Kendo claimed first (Macca Hou), second (Victor Kuo) and third (Jeffery Chung) in men’s individual kyu level and first (Yihan Lu) and second (Chien-Ying Lee) in women’s dan, just to name a few. Women’s Judo also finished second in their competition.
Monday’s competition then saw 15 Sydney University teams go through the first day of Div 1 Nationals undefeated.
Aussie Rules, Women’s Badminton, Baseball, Women’s Basketball, Men’s and Women’s Football, Futsal, Women’s Netball, Rugby 7s, Men’s Table Tennis, Men’s Tennis, Mixed Touch, Men’s Volleyball, Women’s Ultimate and Men’s Water Polo enjoyed only wins across several of their round games, putting them each in a strong position in their pools for Day 2.
One of the highlights was in Rugby 7s where the team only conceded 24 points in four games, while piling on 38+ points in each.
Women’s Football also notched two big wins over QT and UTS, while in the Men’s Volleyball, the team played five two-set and one three-set match to finish the 12-hour day unbeaten despite formidable competition.
It was another cracking day for the University of Sydney, especially for our men’s teams, as Aussie Rules, Volleyball, Tennis, Baseball and Water Polo continued their winning ways.
In the football, the Students were able to clinch a 22-20 win over Torrens University in an absolute nail-biter. Despite a slow start to the second twenty, coupled with two quick goals from the opposition, the team managed to hold on to claim victory. They later went on to defeat ADFA by 29, maintaining their undefeated run.
Across town, sailing began their Nationals campaign with a bang, winning 11 of their 12 races. They head the ladder following a full first day of the regatta and will be looking to consolidate their lead come finals on Thursday.
Also in the water, our swimmers finished up with some solid results. With 12 making finals, the best results came in the form of Sarah Welfare’s 4th place finish in the 200m women’s freestyle, a fourth place finish in the men’s 4x100m Medley Relay, Tom Goddard’s 5th place finish in the men’s 50m backstroke and a sixth place finish in the women’s 4x100m Medley Relay.
Tomorrow will see many teams contest important semi final games.
It was a mixed third day on the Gold Coast with a number of teams, including Men’s Baseball, Women’s Football and both Ultimate Frisbee teams progressing to gold medal matches tomorrow, and other teams, like Men’s Water Polo, falling in their semi final to nip their chance of a first place finish.
Our Men’s 7s team were unable to secure the gold, defeating UTS in their semi, 19-5, before falling to defending champions, Griffith.
Sydney University was dominant at Wyaralong Dam with our Women’s Pair, Men’s Coxed Four, Women’s Lightweight Quad, Men’s Lightweight Single, Men’s Eight and Mixed Coxed four finishing first in their heats to progress to the finals, alongside a number of other crews.
In yet another standout performance, Georgie Whitehouse won gold in the 27km individual Time Trial with a convincing one-minute lead.
Playoff matches will be taking place tomorrow.
Including Kendo (men and women), Sydney University has claimed six pennants with Men’s Baseball, Women’s Football, Women’s Cycling and Women’s Ultimate Frisbee each winning gold.
Men’s Baseball thumped Griffith University for the gold, 11-1, while Women’s Football won their eighth championship in a row. Driven by Sydney Uni Staminade rider Georgie Whitehouse, Sydney Uni won the Women’s Cycling pennant, and Women’s Ultimate defeated ANU, 10-9 to claim gold.
There were a number of extremely close second-place silver finishes and bronze medal wins, too.
Finishing second, following Judo’s silver medal at the weekend, we had Aussie Rules, Men’s Volleyball, Women’s Hockey plus Men’s Rugby 7s on day three.
Also taking silver was Men’s Ultimate Frisbee. An 11am first place playoff saw the women and men’s teams both take on ANU for gold, where the two matches were forced into ‘Universal Point’. A heartstopping final saw the men go down by one, all while maintaining an inspiring sportsman spirit – a fundamental of the self-governed game.
Eight teams also won bronze medals: Mixed Touch Football, Men’s Water Polo, Women’s Futsal, Women’s Table Tennis, Women’s Badminton, Women’s Taekwondo and Men’s Tennis. Men’s Fencing finished equal third with Adelaide University Sport.
On top of this, sports like Table Tennis, Fencing and Swimming won a series of individual or team medals.
In Fencing, the Men’s Foil Team won gold, while Kane Townsend won gold in the men’s singles for Table Tennis and Sarah Tan won silver in the women’s.
In Swimming, Cormac Guthrie won gold in the Men’s 800m Freestyle, the women and men took bronze in 4x50m Freestyle Relays, as well as five fourth place efforts. Overall women came fifth and men came fourth, with the University coming in at fourth overall.
Seperate to the podium finishes and medals won, a number of teams and athletes put on stellar performances in competitive pools to finish outside of the top three.
Dominant across all events, Sydney University rowers won the men’s, women’s and overall competition. Sydney University entered 15 of the 16 events held, winning a total of 7 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals.
The team won the men’s eight to retain the Oxford and Cambridge Cup in its 122nd running to move to 41 wins, just one behind Melbourne University on the historical ladder, plus the mixed eight, men’s and women’s coxed pair, women’s lightweight quad, men’s lightweight single, plus silver in the women’s eight, men’s double and mixed coxed four.
They also won bronze in the women’s coxed four, women’s single and women’s lightweight single. Richard Ledger, who was 7th in A Final of the men’s single, is one of Sydney University Boat Club’s novice rowers, only starting out in May this year to produce an incredible result for the team.