On Wednesday (08/12), Cambridge University Ski and Snowboard Club (CUSSC) beat Oxford University Ski and Snowboard Club (OUSSC) in the 99th annual Varsity Match. The Light Blues won four of the event’s six team categories to take home the overall trophy.

Amidst uncertainty surrounding the viability of international travel over the last couple of weeks due to the emergence of the Omicron variant, both the trip and competition were fortunately able to go ahead. The 2020 event, however, was cancelled as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Slalom and giant slalom were the two events to take place, and CUSSC and OUSSC both entered three teams of six for the men’s and women’s competition. The combined time for each team was then determined by the four fastest racers in each discipline.

Clear and sunny conditions blessed the slopes of Val Thorens on the morning of race day, which the Cambridge Women’s Blues took full advantage of to produce a dominating set of runs. Triumphing over Oxford by a steep margin of 33.54 seconds - 2.54 seconds faster than the difference achieved in the 2019 event - Cambridge’s Egle Augustaityte and Georgia Weeks took first and second place respectively in the giant slalom, while Augustaityte struck again to win the slalom with Sarah Hughes finishing second.

The Men’s Blues fittingly got the better of their opposition too, beating the Dark Blues by a total of 32.82 seconds. Although Oxford’s Justin Hayto topped the individual’s podium, the fine skiing of Cambridge’s Max Schubert and David Edwardes-Ker was enough to claim the team win, as well as get themselves ranked second and third overall respectively. Meanwhile, the thirds put on an impressive showing to take the trophy after some strong skiing from Sam Jordan, while the seconds fell to defeat to deny Cambridge of an unbeaten display in the men’s competition.

A clean sweep for Cambridge’s women was cruelly denied after the seconds lost by just 9.67 seconds, in spite of solid performances from Felicitas Windhagen and Zara Wedgwood. But the Women’s thirds rounded off a spectacular all-round performance by the Light Blues, as they comfortably defeated their opposite number following Oxford’s inability to post a number of times in both disciplines.

Wednesday’s victory marks Cambridge’s defence of the annual title after they won the 97th Ski Racing Varsity Match back in December 2019, where they took overall wins in the Blues and seconds categories yet fell to defeat in the thirds.

Action shots from this year’s races can be found here.

Varsity congratulates CUSSC on their achievement and wishes them a safe journey back to Cambridge with their arsenal of silverware.

Corrections were made to this article on 10/12/2021 to account for a calculation mistake made by the Varsity Committee, with CUSSC winning four rather than five categories at the competition.