V ’12: Snow victor in ski-slope showdown stalemate

The first-ever Snow Varsity ended in a stalemate as after receiving a point for skiing and drawing the snowboarding competition, Warwick lost out to Coventry in the freestyle event.

Warwick secured a victory in the ski racing competition despite one of Coventry’s competitors being a male skier of national standard. He beat Warwick Snow’s racers – Cosmo March and Alex Hope – by just 15 milliseconds. Krista Middleton, the Ski Captain for WarwickSnow, won in the individual women’s races. In the parallel slalom, Warwick’s first team won twice, although the second team were disqualified.

Snowboard racing resulted in an overall draw. Snowboard Captain Alex Emich and Fi Bovis both won in their categories and in the parallel slalom, Warwick’s first snowboarding team won their races twice in a row.

Coventry were victorious in the freestyle competition, dominating first, second and third place in skiing. In snowboarding freestyle, Warwick’s competitors Rob Walker and Alex Emich came third and first respectively. This ensured that freestyle was a closely fought battle, in spite of the fact that Freestyle Captain, Fred Neve, was absent.

Middleton was named Best Women’s Freestyle Skier, although a Coventry competitor managed to take Best Women’s Freestyle Boarder. Middleton said: “It was an amazing day thanks to the incredible talent on show and the massive amount of support that was shown!”

Chris Sury, the Sports’ Officer for Warwick SU, also commended specific competitors from Warwick Snow, in particular Middleton and Emich. The President of WarwickSnow, Sam Marshall, mentioned Joe Clarke and Stephen Ralph as being “two skiers that stepped up” and added that he saw this year as a trial run, and as such it shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Of Snow Varsity in general, Sury commented that “our club and Coventry’s club did really well and there was a great atmosphere.” He added that the races were “genuinely really exciting” and that it was “really important for everyone to see the sporting side of Snow.”

Coventry’s team featured a skier of national standard, about whom Marshall commented: “If we had a professional skier, we’d put him out,” adding that “he was good to watch and definitely one of the better skiers.”

One of WarwickSnow’s competitors, who wished to remain anonymous, indicated that the timer was not always working after technical difficulties at the beginning. Marshall commented on this, stating that the first run was timed by stopwatch and the second run by the timer. Marshall remarked that problems such as this were “why it was good that we had the trial run, we can’t let that happen again next year.”

Another competitor for Warwick in both ski racing and freestyle, Alex Hope, commented that “they could do with having a third event, like ski cross or something similar to ensure there is an overall winner.” He added that WarwickSnow’s participation in Varsity “should get more people involved when they see what Snow’s about and what we do.”

Naomi Andrews, a spectator at Snow Varsity, indicated that the competition was a little disorganised for the spectators, commenting: “The spectators didn’t really get told much of what was going on and we didn’t really have anywhere proper to stand.”

Marshall suggested that three independent judges would be an improvement for next year’s competition, as well as “making sure that a win for the first team is worth more than a win for the second.”

Both Sury and Marshall are feeling confident about Varsity in general, commenting: “Of course we’re going to smash them, it’s been this way for years.”