Sport in Brief

Varsity Sport's roundup of Cambridge sporting events

Rugby Union

Two days before Dan Vickerman travelled to Oxford to complete the yearly ritual that sees the captain of the previous year’s losing team formally challenge his counterpart to a rematch, preparations for this year’s Varsity Match suffered more setbacks as Monday’s match was cancelled.  The fixture, which would have seen the Blues take on London Scottish for a second consecutive week, was intended to replace the scheduled encounter with Worcester, which was also cancelled. Club secretary Doug Rowe stated: “I think Worcester have injuries and are trying not to spread their squad too thinly. It is rather annoying that they only gave us five days’ warning.”

Eton Fives

A record-breaking 27 pairs from 11 different universities convened last Saturday as Cambridge looked to defend their Universities Tournament title in the men’s competition and go one better than last year’s second place in the women’s.  Robert Desmond, who made up one half of the previous year’s winning pair, and Laurie Brock kept a tight game to defeat Oxford’s top pair and give glory to Cambridge in the final.  Meanwhile, it was a extremely tense competition on the ladies’ side, but again the Light Blues kept their nerve to clinch double glory.

 Pistol Shooting

For the first time in several years, CURPC entered the British Pistol Championships held at the Lord Roberts centre, Bisley. It proved to be a highly successful decision for the University side, winning the team gold medal for the ‘standard pistol’ event (combining precision and rapid fire rounds).  The club were able to call on James Bullock and Chris Clemente, two members of the team who are currently shooting for the Cambridgeshire county first team in the NSRA national winter league.