The men’s varsity team continued their prolific streak by pitting their strongest roster in varsity history against the dark blue titans.
The men’s team this year looked the strongest it had ever been, as despite losing long serving CUPLC hall of famer Raghul Parthipan, much beloved Osa Iluobe, and big bencha Ollie Little, the team had gained the likes of Isaac Wong, Subjnr U74kg national gold medalist in 2022 and Etinosasere (the freak) as well as Osa’s legacy in Okolo Chichi, better known as Faze.
Having calculated that the women had pulled off the Herculean task of beating the OUPLC women, the CUPLC men kicked off flight A, most prominently characterized by Santosh “the guru” having his personal Dylan Nelson moment on both his second and third attempts, and narrowly missing a 197.5 kg squat on his third due to a technical mistake. Despite a wonky knee for the better part of a year, Charlie Cambridge (from Cambridge) pulled off a 3/3 performance with a 215 kg squat, while his newest addition to #teamcham in Faze finished off with what was possibly the fastest 215 kg 3rd attempt in history. Alek Radic hit a PB 215 kg despite the bar coming to an absolute standstill mid way through, while Harry Cookson, most noted for missing his spot at Varsity 2023 due to a night out and a flight of stairs, hit a massive 220 kg PB. 18 year old Isaac wong put everyone else in the flight to shame, squatting a massive 225 kg (4 red ladies!) with relative ease, leaving the U74 CUPLC squat record with dread of the future.
On to the second flights, Eti “the yeti”, a first year MEDIC squatted 232.5 kg with absolute ease, while Sebastian Cornwell, former hockey/rugby/cricket jack of all trades turned into Locked-In-Syndrome Seb (U93) hit 235 kg despite absolutely dive-bombing into the hole. Shubang Shubz (U93) the hype king narrowly failed 242.5 kg on his third (all while doing it high bar), leaving Men’s captain and triply injured old man Brandon Teh (U74) with the heaviest squat of the day at 242.5 kg, sporting his unnecessarily flashy and twatty GB singlet. The men had established a strong lead by this point, but the likes of Malcolm Parris, an ox** fresher weighing in at a mere 75 kg, who narrowly missed a 240 kg squat, meant we had to continue to execute well.
Moving on to the bench press, Isaac continued with a 3/3 performance and a 117.5 kg bench press, securing a maximum 50% bench to deadlift ratio while Faze countered with his own 44.8% of 130 kg. Alek matched 130 kg, while the long armed Charlie got a PB of 147.5 kg, and Harry just hit the 150 kg mark. The second flight of men saw Shubang hit a PB of 147.5 kg while Brandon couldn’t seem to understand the concept of “not hitting the rack”, missing his last bench on downward motion and breaking his seemingly eternal 9/9 streak. Eti just missed his final bench of 162.5 kg despite having hit it in training due to a misgroove, while Seb closed off the flight with a massive 162.5 kg bench, leaving CUPLC alumnus, livestream commentator and U93 kg CUPLC bench record holder of 165 kg, Ollie Little, maintaining his grasp of the record by the skin of his teeth. The men by this point had continued to edge out Ox**, now ahead by a number of GL points in the mid teens.
On to the most exciting part of any meet, the deadlifts, saw a myriad of dramas, from Harry Cookson facing the reality that never locking out in training actually translated into not locking out in comp, and making a ridiculous 30 kg jump from 250 kg to 280 kg but narrowly missing it on a wobble at the top, to Charlie Cambridge charging out like a triceratops, but very narrowly missing out a humongous 302.5 kg final deadlift. Alek Radic similarly just missed out on 280 kg for his final deadlift, while Isaac Wong hit a smoooooth 247.5 kg third attempt to secure his full blue total as only a first year. Faze proceeded to hit quite possibly the easiest third attempt ever and smoked 290 kg, hitting his first 9/9 in the process. By this point, the Cambridge win was all but secured after everyone in the second flight hit their openers, but the show still went on with Brandon Teh hitting an immaculate “hall goes quiet” belt flick 265 kg, Sebastian Cornwell grinding through 267.5 kg and Shubang absolutely ripping 302.5 kg off the floor with much more in the tank. To conclude the ridiculous lifts, we has Eti, our first year medic, hit 307.5kg for the very final deadlift of the day, to which he then celebrated with the most wholesome double thumbs up in CUPLC history (perhaps by the end of his time in Cambridge we may see a 400 kg deadlift at varsity).
The Men had succeeded in their mission of securing the varsity win for the 12th consecutive year, beating Oxford by a whopping 25+ GLP. Upon this announcement from Yaron the MC of the day, a roar emerged from the men’s team and the now customary tradition of catapulting the men’s captain into the sky resulted in Brandon Teh and his underweight body being shot over a meter into the air by the oh-so-strong Cambridge Men’s team. Brandon took the top lifter of the day at 98.89 GLP, followed by Shubang Nagalotimath (94.19 GLP) then Etinosasere (92.52 GLP).
Brandon extends his thanks to OUPLC for being incredible competitors, his fellow executive committee, all the helpers, WhiteLightsMedia for the fantastic stream and of course his stronger than life Men’s team. The quality of the Varsity event, in both production and lifting has become truly unrivaled in comparison to any other regional competition. As fresh (and seemingly ever more talented) blood is injected into CUPLC, so begins a new reign in our glorious history.
