The Relays Gala is run annually on the third weekend of Michaelmas term and sees Cambridge compete against teams from across England in what is the first competition of the season.

This year saw Cambridge play host to teams from Otter SC (London), University of Sheffield, Imperial College London and King’s College London.

As the gala represents the first set of races for most after a potentially long summer break from training and competition, it is a useful gauge of fitness and provides an arena to highlight weaknesses which the team can improve on over the next few months. It is also a more light-hearted affair compared to the Varsity match against Oxford or other BUCS competitions.

The timing of the gala is very tight, with races only minutes apart. Combined with its place early in the season, this means lactate headaches and high heart-rates were on the agenda for most of the competitors.

First on the program was the men’s 100m IM where Dale Waterhouse eased to a comfortable win with Henry Marshall in third. The women’s IM saw Georgia Sherman take out third place followed by the Men’s 100m Backstroke where Tom Rootsey secured another simple win for Cambridge, as did Megan Connor in the women’s backstroke.

In the 100m butterfly Joel Carpenter produced a sluggish third for the men whilst the women’s captain Henny Dillon made it look all too easy for a first place finish. Tom Hill’s bright green swim attire was not sufficient for victory in the 100m breaststroke, ultimately coming second whilst Priya Crosby managed a close third in the women’s breaststroke.

Like an orca tossing about a seal, Dale Waterhouse toyed with his competition and cruised to victory in the 100m freestyle. Chloe Spiby-Loh battled it out at the finish but came out third for the women.

The Relays Gala is somewhat unusual in that it contains 4x50m relays in all strokes and a mixed gender 8x50m freestyle relay for the finale. This leads to the rather unusual sight of backstroke races which start from a dive, but this is also what makes the Relays Gala a bit of fun.

The Cambridge team secured victories in the majority of the relays with special mention to Michael Garner-Jones, whose enthusiasm for the 4x50m butterfly relay was such that he could not be restrained by the starting signal, leading to the first and hopefully only DQ of the season.

A strong performanc across the board from Cambridge took out the meet with 146 points to second place Otter SC with 137. The Cambridge second string team also performed admirably, seeing off the likes of KCL and the B squads of Sheffield and Otter SC (London).