There was a new look SA Challenge Intervarsity Tournament held in the first half of 2020. Due to COVID-19, the original SA Challenge sports scheduled for April and May were postponed, so for the first time the SA Challenge went online.
UniSA, Flinders University and the University of Adelaide worked together to launch the online intervarsity tournaments, which provided an opportunity for students to represent their university while adhering to physical distancing restrictions.
Over 50 UniSA students competed in the online events during May and June – 26 students competed in Esports competition and 25 students competed in the Strava App competition. It was great to see students from UniSA Online and our regional campuses – Whyalla and Mt Gambier – participating, in addition to students from our four metropolitan campuses.
UniSA had some great success, winning both men’s cycling distances in the Strava App competition as well as the Rocket League esports tournament.
For the Strava App competition, a UniSA Sport Strava Club was created for students to join. They then chose a safe location at a time that suited them to record their results via the App in either running (400m, 1500m and 5km) or cycling (10km and 20km).
Despite our two cycling wins, the University of Adelaide finished atop of the Strava table on 24 points, ahead of UniSA on 17 and Flinders Uni on 15.
Two five-day esports competitions were held for the SA Challenge – League of Legends and Rocket League. While UniSA won the Rocket League, the University of Adelaide won League of Legends, and with both teams finishing on equal points, the University of Adelaide won on a count back to also take out the esports competition.
Big thanks must go to the UniSA Esports Club, who hosted the esports tournaments, streamed the matches and provided commentary for the finals. Thanks especially to Luke Harris, President of UniSA Esports Club and Emma Pretty, UniSA Esports committee member, for their fantastic work as the game administrators.
The UniSA Esports Club worked hard during the event to cater for the 58 individual participants that formed 13 teams and played 40 matches. On the UniSA Esports Twitch channel, 25 hours of gameplay were streamed with over 2400 live views.
Given the success of the online intervarsity events, they will continue to be included in future years. The 2020 SA Challenge sports that were postponed from April and May will be re-scheduled to SP5 – more details will be announced in late July, with the points from the online tournaments to be added to each of the Universities overall scores to determine the overall winner of the 2020 SA Challenge Cup.