The Homecoming Cup made its debut at Freshtival 2015. The relay race is the biggest sporting event to date as part of the induction week at the Kleve campus of the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences.
Kleve/Kamp-Linfort, 27 October 2015: As part of the induction week, the tutor team organised a team sports event on campus for the first time for all students at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences. Thirty teams, each consisting of five students, were set the challenge of completing a relay race featuring numerous hurdles as quickly as possible.
The event began with the canoeists on the Spoy Canal. In pairs, the students had to cover the 80-metre stretch to the campus bridge in a canoe as quickly as possible. Upon reaching the bridge, the sprinters took over the baton. This was followed by a 400-metre run across the campus, at the end of which the cycling course began. After the cycling course came the biggest challenge – a wooden wall nearly four metres high and eight metres wide, which all five team members had to scale.
“The challenge was to pull all team members over the wall. Two team members were allowed to provide assistance from the other side of the wall to help the others cross by pulling them up,” said Julia Gessler, a third-semester student on the “Science Communication and Bionics” degree programme.
First place went to the international team FATALITY! comprising student Wonder Gumise, who – quite contrary to his name – emerged as the lucky winner of free entry to the AStA’s “Homecoming Party” the following day, a 30-euro food and drink voucher for the Bar Wohnzimmer in Kleve, and a 20-euro book voucher each. The prizes were presented by Peter Wack, First Chairman of the Friends of Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Cleve Campus e.V. Of course, there were also medals for the top three teams and a trophy, which the winning team secured this year for their ‘Technology and Bionics’ faculty.
The first Homecoming Cup was a great success and ranks as the biggest sporting event to date during induction week at the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences’ Cleve campus. The competition was made possible primarily by Prof. Dr Wiliam M Megill, Professor of Bionics specialising in biomimetic materials; Peter Garzke, the university’s sports coordinator; Julia Ilg, the tutor representative; and Sana Sarrazin, the coordinating tutor. The Friends of Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Cleve Campus e.V. funded the event through a generous donation.
The idea for the “Homecoming Cup” originally came from the United States. “Homecoming” is a tradition designed to welcome students to the campus at the start of the semester.
