LONDON VARSITY 2021 – Wednesday Preview (2 June)

Fencing

Given that this year’s Fencing programme will have épée, foil and sabre across men’s and women’s events, it makes sense to do Fencing as a bumper preview. As with many sports, there has been difficulty with returning to training. Only outdoor training has been available for a largely indoor sport (indoor training is unlikely until the summer), taking place on the quad of Guy’s Campus, meaning it’s also dependent on positive weather, a concept this month of May has failed to grasp. However, that hasn’t dampened spirit nor potential for KCL Fencing for this year’s varsity. The foil is the weapon that offers King’s’ best chance of victory, with quality on both the men’s and women’s sides. Overall, KCL men have been on a winning streak in fencing since 2018, and the side has now been reinforced with GB-level competitors Ed Howlett and Jake Hurst. As for the women, they have grown in quality since their last win in 2017, going undefeated in their league last season, and Jeanne Frebault, on the women’s sabre team, has medalled before at the 2019 Junior African Games. Potentially Olympic level quality throughout the squad bodes extremely well for a victory for Strand.

American Football

American football has a small but growing popularity across the UK – here at King’s though the fever for American football arrived a long time ago. KCL Regents is home to Americans and European American football fans alike that form a formidable team, only just missing out on promotion two seasons ago before last year’s season away from the sport.

American football is a game of complex rules that few understand but who needs to understand tossing a ball 30 yards down a grass field to your mate running down the sideline who is just hoping he can catch it without getting laid out – it is all in the feeling of watching a highlight play. Football is a sport for anyone, tall, short, thin, wide – it is not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog. And KCL Regents is a team of dogs with a lot of fight. 

Regents are looking forward to taking on the UCL Emperors in what is set to be a touchdown scoring and highlight play field shootout.

Men’s Hockey (KCL)

As the KCL Women’s Hockey team recently pulled out of this year’s varsity series, Strand’s hopes rests solely on the men for victory at Lee Valley. Another side blighted by the dearth of fixtures throughout the year, even since the relaxation of restrictions in April, the team comes into the match-up as rusty as their Gower counterparts. However, under the captaincy of Toby Kingsberry, a year both on and off the pitch, the side will be at top motivation to make one of their few fixtures of the year count. Hopefully King’s can retain their Varsity hockey title after a stellar performance in the 2020 series.

Rowing

A late entrant to this year’s series, and will be looking to retain their regular crown of Varsity champs, perhaps even going one better than last year where the team took 5 events out of 6. This year, the commitment is no different- despite the harsh winter and Covid restrictions slowing down and hampering the progress made in late 2020, “the commitment of the lads has come through in recent weeks”, says Nick Kabanas. There is no shortage of events this year either, and given the internal consensus is that King’s have even improved on last year, surely the points will be coming back to the Strand in this one.