Nopesport

The 2009 Varsity Match, the 38th year of the competition, was held on Epping Forest NW (individual) and on Northaw Great Wood (relay) over the weekend of the 25th/26th April 2009.The courses on both days were skillfully planned by Adam Leaf of Happy Herts and DrongO (the club for ex-CUOCers), and the organisers were Blanka Sengerová of DrongO and Adam Bennett of Cambridge University OC.

The men's trophy was won by Ben Stevens (Cambridge), although he didn't quite manage to dominate the course altogether and was beaten by 9 seconds by DrongO's Mark Bown. The men's team trophy was won, with a margin of 14 minutes, by Oxford (scorers James McMillan, Chris Embrey, Ian Webb, Matt Lyle) in 3:42:40 compared to Cambridge's time of 3:56:32.

The women's race was much more one-sided, with the favourites Oxford having a 1 hour winning margin (Oxford 2:46:58, Cambridge 3:47:59). The 3 scorers were Liz Bridge, Ruth Holmes, and Jenn Thornton, although the remaining two Oxford runners were close behind them. The inidividual title was won by Liz Bridge, first year postgraduate student at Oxford University, so the Varsity team trophy looks fairly safe in Oxford's hands for the next few years.

It was great to see both clubs were able to field a team in the men's B race. This was dominated by Cambridge, with Gerard Higgins (Cambridge) winning the overall title and the Cambridge team (Gerard Higgins, Fred Lyon, Huw Grange and Donald Evans) emerging victorious over Oxford by 30 minutes (Cambridge 2:23:31, Oxford 2:53:44).

Finally, despite the low attendance from the ex-CUOC club DrongO, DrongO managed to bring home the JOK vs DrongO trophy for the first time since 2003 (4 men and 2 women to count).

Full results are available on www.drongo.org.uk