Yale Athletics

After a four-year break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s oldest continuous international sporting event was back in action this week in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In this meet, there are only two team scores: Harvard and Yale’s combined men’s and women’s track and field teams versus Oxford and Cambridge’s combined men’s and women’s teams. Harvard and Yale took the meet by a score of 12–6 on the men’s side and 13–4 on the women’s side, extending their winning-streak to 30 years since their last loss in 1993.

“Every four years, they come over here, and every four years, we go over there,” Coach Shoehalter explained to the News. “COVID-19 pushed it back, or else we would’ve been across the Atlantic ourselves last weekend.”

Started in 1893, this event predates even the modern Olympics — the Yale-Harvard versus Oxford-Cambridge track meet. Every two years, two of the four teams travel across the pond to compete.  This year, Oxford and Cambridge Universities flew across the Atlantic last week to kick off their stretch of meets at four Ivy League schools, starting with last weekend’s meet at Harvard University. After missing a beat in 2021, the teams were back in action together for the first time since 2019.

Matt Appel ’24 took gold in the discus with a throw of 55.59m.

“There is absolutely a different atmosphere to the competition given the longevity of the tradition,” Appel wrote to the News. “In fact, while I was there I met the winner of the 1961 HYOC competition and we chatted briefly, which was a fulfilling experience. Also as of late I have been getting to be more familiar with the throwers at Harvard, who are both incredibly talented and enjoyable people to be around.”

Other top performers for the Bulldogs men’s squad in the meet were the 4x100m team of Jacob Kao ’25, Kit Colson ’25, Andrew Farr ’26 and James Grindle ’25 who took first overall with a time of 41.56s. Kao also took first overall in the 200m and second in the 100m. Aaron Miller ’25 took home gold in the 400m dash with a time of 48.75s, and Isiah Udofia ’26 earned gold in the long jump with a PR of 7.20m. 

The women’s team also had several impressive finishes as Bharathi Subbiah ’24 kicked things off with gold in the long jump with a 5.45m leap. Carmel Fitzgibbon ’26 also notched a first place finish for the Bulldogs in the 800m with a 2:10.63 finish. Finally, Peyton Parker ’25 also took home gold for the Bulldogs in the 400m hurdles with a finish of 1:04.87.

“I felt that it was more “special” than just a typical track meet, given its storied history and the nature of the international collaboration,” Fitzgibbon wrote to the News. “The evening banquet and hosting the Oxford/Cambridge students at our school added an extra dimension to the weekend, as well.”

Because the 2021 meet was canceled due to the pandemic, the Bulldogs and Crimson will send 60 athletes across the Atlantic this June to face off against their rivals at their home too

Typically, this weekend’s past meet would just have been Harvard and Yale, and the top performer of each event for the Bulldog-Crimson combo would make the Harvard-Yale team that competes against Oxford and Cambridge in the month of June. However, this year, the coaches will determine the traveling roster for June based on this meet’s results.

“Harvard and Yale are each guaranteed a minimum of 22 athletes, with a total of 60 competitors combined from the two schools,” Coach Shoehalter explained to the News. “We choose only certain athletes, and we are choosing from this meet for this summer.”

In the meantime, the Bulldogs will head back to Storrs, Connecticut this weekend to compete in the UConn Northeast challenge.