Victoria students headed north last week to compete in the 2011 Super City University Games, held in Auckland.
From 26 to 29 April, more than 1100 students from 16 tertiary institutions across Australia and New Zealand battled it out across 20 sports.
The event, which was hosted by Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and Auckland Student Movement at AUT (AuSM), pitted university teams against each other in sports as diverse as karate, waka ama, wheelchair rugby and tennis.
When Salient went to print, Victoria had picked up gold medals for men’s team épee, individual épee, ultimate frisbee and debating; silver medals for individual épee (fencing), men’s foil team (fencing) and table tennis doubles; and bronze medal for cross country. Victoria also came second overall in the rowing.
However, the Victoria team failed to make it to the Games’ opening ceremony, due to serious issues on the roads.
The Ultimate Frisbee team spent an hour in Taupo Hospital with a University of Canterbury student suspected to have meningitis; the basketball team broke down 40 minutes outside of Auckland; the karate team had to divert to pick someone up in Napier; and all the teams had to contend with traffic and icy roads.
Despite this, VUWSA Clubs and Events Manager Melissa Barnard, who has accompanied the Victoria contingent to Auckland, said she was very happy with the teams and their performance.
“It’s going really well. Our teams are competing to an incredibly high level and picking up a lot of medals. We’re in lots of semi-finals, so hopefully we’ll get some more medals tomorrow.”
VUWSA President Seamus Brady said he was justifiably proud of the Victoria team.
“It’s great to see Team Victoria performing so well despite not having home town advantage. We’ve medaled in all one but event [at the time of writing] and all our teams have reached the semi-finals… Team Victoria always puts in a solid effort and I’m sure this year will be be no different.”
The University Games were first hosted in 1902 by the University of Canterbury, and they are now the second largest multi-sports event in New Zealand.