The Events

Five events put our athletes through their paces, testing vital sporting attributes. We record the results for each athlete then send them to the mathmos at Varsity who work out an overall SuperSports score for each competitor. The standing Jump tests lower body strength. The Bag Throw tests upper body strength, the athletes hurling a large cylindrical tackle pad as far as they can – awkward as well as heavy. 100m sprint is designed to discover speed, whilst the Bleep Test is all about endurance. Finally, Limbo tests flexibility – and is generally just quite amusing.

Week 3: Hockey

This is Week 3, Sport 3, of Varsity Sport’s newest competition. Each week we’re taking a male and a female competitor representing a major Blues sport and putting them to the test. Five events assess specific sporting attributes: speed, strength, stamina, and flexibility will all be measured.

Representing our first stick sport, Ollie Salveson and Eleanor Wiseman took part this week on behalf of Hockey. Salveson soon proved to be a surprise package, although not as muscular as his rugby or football counterparts  he soon showed himself to be a worthy opponent across all five events.

In an extremely impressive display Ollie Salveson saw him outstrip both Max Wolke and Dave Riley in three of the five events, jumping into first place overall on the men’s side of the competition. From relatively inauspicious beginnings in the Standing Jump, Salveson redeemed himself with outstanding efforts in Limbo, the Bag Throw, and the Bleep Test. 

However, Varsity SuperSports is designed to discover the best overall sport, and for Hockey to claim the overall lead Eleanor Wiseman needed to pull off a similarly impressive haul across the events.

Unfortunately, while Wiseman showed signs of challenging Cat Murphy and Anne Venner, her results came up just short of her competitors. In the Standing Jump she placed above Murphy but below Venner and did the same in the Bleep Test. It was the tests of strenght and speed that proved to Wiseman’s downfall, while her 100m time certainly will not be the slowest of the competition it was not quite quick enough to give her an overall SuperSports score that would move Hockey above Rugby.

Rugby holds on to top spot, but will their dominance continue? Find out in Varsity SuperSports.

Correction: Last week we printed Dave Riley’s 100m time as 12.1s, his time was in fact 11.75s.