Gold Rush At Uni Games
[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 8
13 October - 10 November 2008 ] By Rod Warnecke
University of Melbourne athletes won 10 championship titles at the recent 2008 Australian University Games – a new AUG Division One benchmark.
The Games, held in Melbourne for the first time since 1998, saw some 6500 participants compete across 28 sports in some of the best facilities in the country.
Team Melbourne won its 10 national university championships in the Division One sports of Australian Football (Men); Baseball; Cycling; Fencing; Judo; Kendo; Netball (Women); Squash (Men); Taekwondo; and Volleyball (Women).
The Australian Football team, which has won six of the past nine Australian University Championships, was led by Box Hill Hawks captain Alastair Neville and North Ballarat VFL premiership player Myles Sewell.
The Baseball team dominated the competition, winning their five games by an average of 11 runs.
Up-and-coming Drapac Porsche cyclist Daniel Braunsteins led a dominant cycling team to the seventh consecutive Australian University Championship title for the University’s cycling team.
The cycling team included Daniel’s brother Peter, World University Championship mountain-biker Lachlan Norris and VIS riders Toby Dite, Chloe McConville and Livia Gluchowksa.
Daniel won gold in the men’s Road Race, Pairs Time Trial (with brother Peter) and the Individual Time Trial, and was second in the Criterium.
Chloe McConville won gold in both the women’s Road Race and Pairs Time Trial (with Madeleine Oldfield).
Melbourne University Fencing Club stalwart Simon Summerfield led our fencers to back-to-back national titles with a team that included Commonwealth Fencing medalist Catherine Mackay and 2008 Beijing Olympic Modern Pentathlete Angela Darby.
Strong performances from the entire team resulted in a clean sweep of the martial arts-inspired Australian University Championships with victories in Judo, Kendo and Taekwondo.
Our Women’s Netball team won its second successive Australian University Championship, despite two ferocious battles with arch-rivals Victoria University and Monash in the preliminary games, losing to VU by three and defeating Monash by just one goal. But the finals were a different story with the team, led by Alice Stephens and Samantha Holt, defeating VU by four goals in the semi-final and defeating Monash by 10 goals in the gold medal match.
The smallest competition at the Games was in Squash, but the performances on-court by our University of Melbourne students was huge. Undefeated in their eight preliminary games, the James Kavourakis-led team defeated Monash in the gold medal match 27 games to one.
Rounding out our gold medal tally was a victory in women’s Volleyball. The new-look team (missing star player Neira Borcic who was playing with the Australian team in the Asia Cup) dropped only three sets along the road to a three–nil victory over Monash.
Team Melbourne athletes were also national runners-up in women’s Athletics, men’s Badminton and men’s Football (Soccer). We also placed third in 14 sporting competitions and finished fourth in Australia in another four sports.
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