This year the University of Auckland took home the shield as overall points winner. Otago had to console itself with the fair-play trophy, which confirmed that Otago has more “good cunts” than other unis. Otago performed well over all competitions; only the debating team failed to reach the podium. The rowing and badminton teams took out their respective competitions while the touch and netball teams performed well for a silver medal.
VSM has hit the Otago Unigames team hard. Many elite sportspeople could no longer afford the trip now that OUSA has had to limit its contribution. Otago did not even field teams in cricket, football, ultimate (a.k.a. frisbee), basketball, rugby sevens and volleyball, which left us virtually no chance of taking out the overall title.
The decline in quality of Otago’s partici- pation in recent years has been questioned by some, but Logan Edgar remained typically upbeat about the result: “We sent a small, high quality team who played hard and fair and did us proud to get us the bronze and pick up the coveted Fair Play Award”.
Rain and bad weather hampered the event this year, but those who participated reported a well-run event which was “as much about having fun as it was about beating the other unis”.
Rowing
- Captain: Andrew Annear (men’s) and Sarah Lindley (women’s).
- Result: Overall winner.
- Why: Hard work!!! We have the best facilities and dedicated coaches who put in a lot of work on the crews.
- MVP: The novices.
- LVP (least valuable player): Ratboy.
- Best Part: Heaps of fun and a decent party afterwards. All the universities coming together. Often people who race with each other during the summer turn around and race against each other at uni games.
- Worst Part: All the organising and hard work.
- Weirdest thing that happened: A masters student pashing a fresher and being very proud.
Lawn Bowls
- Captain: Conor Muir.
- Result: Silver medalist.
- Why: We performed well in pool play and played well against Waikato in the semis. In the final we were outplayed by Auckland and didn’t have any luck.
- MVP: Conor Muir.
- LVP: Thomas Leonard-Gatland.
- Best part: Getting together with the rest of the Otago team at night.
- Worst Part: The weather was shit and not enough Otago students took part.
- Weirdest thing that happened: The netball girls and their chanting, singing and dancing.
Badminton
- Captain: Pavithar Gill.
- Result: Overall winner.
- Why: Strong squad. The team has played together for a couple of years and we all represent Otago at provincial level as well.
- MVP: Luke White.
- LVP: Luke White.
- Best Part: Finding out that freshers can’t “handle the jandal”.
- Worst Part: Taking care of the aftermath when freshers can’t “handle the jandle”.
- Weirdest thing that happened: Arriving back to Christchurch to find our tyres slashed. Fucking skinheads!!!
Debating
- Captain: Paul Hunt.
- Result: Fifth overall.
- Why: The limited preparation format didn’t suit our team. We prefer the longer formats (don’t we all).
- MVP: Nick Gavey.
- LVP: Alice Sowry.
- Best Part: The break night BYO.
- Worst Part: The smell in the bathrooms.
- Weirdest thing that happened: People getting locked out of their rooms.
Touch
- Captain: Jared Stanley (Otago 1) and Holly Lewis (Otago A).
- Result: Silver medalist.
- Why: We didn’t have enough subs. Poor management. It’s not because we were hungover.
- MVP: Kieran “Pash King” Parker.
- LVP: Waiariki “Brother 1” Koia.
- Best part: Sex, drugs and rock & roll. Enforcing my “bad habits onto everyone else” and meeting all the sharnas, uces, cuzzies and brothers from other Universities.
- Worst Part: Playing touch.
- Weirdest thing that happened: One team member (who we all thought was gay) bumping, grinding, doing the dougie and trying to pash a girl, before getting kicked out for his trouble.
Netball
- Captain: Rachel Carr.
- Result: Silver medalist.
- Why: We had a strong squad but AUT were just too good in the final. A good effort though.
- MVP: Ngareka Bensemann.
- LVP: Rachel Carr.
- Best part: Just being in Wellington was pretty cool. Five girls got into the tournament team. Well done to Jamie Robertson, Rachel Carr, Rebecca Purvis, Tammy Sheehy and Ngareka Bensemann.
- Worst part: Not winning. It sucked getting beaten.
- Weirdest thing that happened: Instead of warm-ups we choreographed some sweet dance routines. The touch guys loved it.
