Varsity: Athletics aiming for success

Our goal this year was to soften the image of the Athletics society, states Rebekah Ingham. She is, however, quick to point out that whilst maintaining the competitive drive that defines great athletes, the focus of those involved in Warwick Athletics this year was to make the club more accessible to the masses.

As perhaps the most diverse of all Warwick’s sports societies, in the sense that athletics itself provides for a range of athletes from long distance runners to shot putters, Warwick Athletics has concerned itself with becoming accessible not only to the elite sportsmen and women amongst us, but to every student at Warwick.

However, this year’s Freshers, Ingham insists, have pushed the club to new levels of excellence, and have helped create the feeling of optimism which surrounds Athletics ahead of the Varsity fixtures.

Warwick Athletics boasts some extremely talented athletes who certainly have the potential to be successful at Varsity. Rebekah herself was asked to represent England at heptathlon before injury struck, with distance runner and club record holder for 800m and 3000m Andrew Sheridan, as well as talented freshers Deborah Willis and Joshua Bagnall also being singled out for praise by their captain.

The academic year so far has been a successful one for Warwick Athletics. Although the athletics season, and therefore the majority of competitions, begins in May, Warwick have performed well in cross country and indoor competitions this year.

In the Birmingham Cross Country Leagues the men’s team currently sit at a very respectable 13th position amidst competition from Loughborough and Birmingham Universities, and specialised athletics clubs such as the Coventry Godiva Harriers.

The women occupy 6th position, a fantastic effort which is testament to the efforts made by the exec to attract more females to the club.

In November 2010 Warwick hosted the annual Warwick Relays competition, attracting a number of teams from the area to compete in a relay race around campus. This year’s competition was a massive success for the club, with the Men’s A team coming in third place, Women’s A in first place, and teams from Warwick coming in first and second in the mixed category.

Varsity represents a pre-season chance to assess how successful training ahead of the summer competitions has been, providing the greatest of incentives to put the hours spent in the gym and on the track in training to good use and defeat rivals Coventry.

Ingham was keen to discuss new training methods implemented this year, such as core and ankle strengthening exercises, which have really brought the athletes back to basics in an attempt to provide a strong basis on which to build their training. Warwick Athletics provide training sessions on a daily basis, ranging from personalised circuit training to abs and core strengthening and track sessions.

Attempts are being made to improve the structure of Varsity Athletics following Coventry’s request to open the competition to other universities, which was rejected by Warwick. Ingham states that the universities are working to create a “new blueprint for Varsity” in an attempt to make the competition more structured and professional.

It is a painful truth that, historically, Coventry has been the more successful of the two universities at Athletics. Their athletes regularly train with the Godiva Harriers, a specialised club with dedicated coaching, whereas Warwick rely on the exec to organise training sessions.

However, it is clear that the system in place at Warwick Athletics is superior in the sense that it allows training to take place in an environment which can equally be friendly, relaxed and social as it can be highly competitive and structured.

Ingham is clear about this point: at the end of the day, being able to compete with the support of friends spurring you on, then celebrating afterwards as part of the club’s highly active social life, is surely the most valuable aspect of Warwick Athletics.

While Coventry have the traditional structure in place, with professional coaching and better facilities, Warwick’s ‘sport for all’ attitude creates a team spirit and an ethos which is focused on success, but in a friendly and competitive environment. It is clear that this attitude has a positive effect on the squad, and has allowed Athletics to become one of the most popular and social societies at Warwick. Rebekah’s own goal for Varsity is to equalize her personal best of 1.70 in the high jump leg of the heptathlon, and, in her words, “to smash Coventry.” This sentiment is likely to be echoed by all members of the society, and, hopefully, the training, team-building and socialising has constructed a squad which is capable of doing exactly that.