Varsity Trip

The Varsity Trip is the official annual Oxford and Cambridge Ski and Snowboard trip. It was started as the facilitator of the Blues Ski Races between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in 1922; at this time skiing was an expensive sport and it was almost exclusively attended by the racers and their families. Today things have changed with the trip aiming to promote Skiing provide cheap skiing and promotion to newcomers to the sport.

The Varsity Trip is also by far the largest ski trip in the world run by full-time students. Around 1500 students from the two universities go each year when it is held at the end of the Michaelmas university term with almost 1/3 of participants being complete beginners.

In the past few years, the trip has sold for under £300 for all-inclusive skiing, often to world-class resorts such as Tignes and Val d'Isere. The destination for the 2008 trip will be Val Thorens.

Numbers have traditionally been around 1000, but since 2006, the trip has been growing significantly each year. The largest Varsity Trip was in 2007 with 1707 people over the two weeks.

Varsity Trip Organisation

The trip is organised by a Committee of 8 from Oxford and Cambridge who have individual allocated roles with 4 from each university.

The organisation liaises closely with the Oxford and Cambridge Ski and Snowboard Clubs (OUSSC and CUSSC) and all trip participants automatically become associates of these clubs, making the ski clubs one of the largest societies in their respective universities.

Blues Races and Competitions

During the Varsity Trip, skiing races in Slalom and Giant Slalom are held. A new event called the Combi was introduced for the first time in 2006 which consisted of a combination of GS and Slalom interspersed with jumps all as part of the same race. In 2006 this was won by Lomax Ward (Gonville & Caius, Cambridge University) and by Laurence Whyatt (St Edmund Hall, Oxford University) in 2007. The most recent competition to be introduced was the Super G in 2007 - a high speed race only attempted by the elite Oxbridge skiers. This was won by Ben van Zwanenberg (Magdalen, Oxford University). The top four racers in the first men's and women's teams are automatically awarded Half Blues. At the discretion of the Race Captain, another two Half Blues can be awarded; and, if certain conditions have been met, a Full Blue can be awarded. In recent years, the competition has extended to snowboarders but this has not got Blues status although Ed Gunn, who has won the BUSC Championships for snowboarding at BUSC has been awarded an Extraordinary Full Blue. Blues skier Freddie Clough was awarded an Extraordinary Full Blue for his selection to the British University team that participated in the 2007 World Winter University Games in Turin.

External links

* [http://www.varsitytrip.com/ Official Varsity Trip Website]
* [http://www.nevasport.com/nevablogs/d/oxford-vs-cambridge-ski-race/1832 Retro Ski]