The 2025 edition of the LUCA Indoor Championships marked 10 years since the inaugural LUCA Indoor event of 2015. With 10 years of history now preceeding these championships, and a record number of affiliated clubs, this year’s championships proved to be LUCA’s most competitive and inclusive yet.
KCL Secure Fifth Consecutive LUCA Indoors Title
As ever, the final scores came down to the wire with one point in it to determine the overall LUCA champions. King’s College London were able to clinch victory from varsity rivals UCL, making this their fifth LUCA Indoors win in a row. This follows a fantastic year for the KCL club, who were able to win all three major LUCA titles in the 2024-25 season (indoors, including the final ever UL championship, XC, and outdoors) – watch this space to see how they perform in the rest of this year.
St George’s Claim Fifth Straight United Hospitals Shield
Indoors is also the opportunity for the medical schools to compete for the UH shield. This rather impressive piece, first won by Guy’s in 1867, represents one of the oldest competitions in modern athletic history. St George’s were also after a 5-er, and were able to complete this in style. Excluding the pandemic, they have now won this title six years in a row, and are the most successful UH club since the inauguration of LUCA in 2015. All the more impressive seeing that St George’s did not have an athletics club until 2018. One of the founding members, Jack Dickinson, now sits on the LUCA board of trustees. The next question is whether St George’s can challenge the run of Imperial, who are able to win the UH shield for 12 consecutive years between the years of 2004 and 2015.
Largest Ever Club Representation and First-Ever Para Events
This year was the most well represented in terms of spread of clubs. There were 27 university clubs from London and the Southeast represented, along with many more in the form of guests. This was also the first year that LUCA offered Para-events, with ambulant categories available in the shotput and the long jump. This is an exciting step forward for LUCA in our drive to offer athletics to a wide range of student athletes.
Multiple LUCA Records Fall at the 2025 Championships
Multiple records were broken on the day. This included an impressive 1500m from Alex Goodall of Imperial, breaking the four minute barrier for the first time in LUCA history. Calum Regis-Edwards (SMU) stormed to 200m victory, breaking SMU alumnus Connor Neal’s record by 0.02s in the final. In the women’s, Amber Brown of Royal Holloway leaped to a new long jump record of 5.44m. Olivia Dobson of Brunel threw 12.72 in the shot to break one of the longest-standing indoor records, set by Brunel alumnus Chloe Vernon-Hamilton in 2016.
Lateefah Agberemi Dominates With Three LUCA Records
The star of the championships was undoubtedly Lateefah Agberemi (KCL), who no doubt carried her club to victory. She broke the 60m and 200m records in the heats, and then went on to run even quicker in the finals (7.71 and 25.81 respectively), as well as breaking the triple jump record by over a metre. A silver in the long jump cemented the medical student as the ‘MoVP’, or most valuable player, with an impressive 14 points to her name. This new trophy, bearing the name of Sir Mo Farah, once of St Mary’s University, is our newly commissioned trophy in recognition of Sir Mo’s 10 global titles – four Olympic and six World golds – and ties in with LUCA’s 10th anniversary year.
Aside from the winners, it was great to see so many athletes trying athletics for the first time, and seasoned runners breaking PBs – this is at the heart of what LUCA is and we are excited to see both ends of the spectrum increasing, both in terms of performance and inclusivity.
Thank You and What’s Next for LUCA in 2025
A huge thank you goes out to the officials, volunteers, athletics organising committee, club captains and exec for the time and effort taken to make 2025 another successful championships. We hope everyone enjoys the festive break and we look forward to welcoming you back in the New Year with more XC, before the LUCA Outdoor Open kicks off the outdoor season on 28th March at the London Marathon Community Track in Stratford.
In the meantime, feel free to feast your eyes on the fantastic photos and videos courtesy of our official LUCA photographer, Janek, here. Full results here.