CUDT is National Champion 2019
After a though run earlier this term in Sheffield and Cardiff, CUDT travelled to Blackpool on Saturday 23rd February to take part in the 57th Inter-Varsity Dance Competition (IVDC) – the National Championship of the student dancesport circuit, which boasts more than 1000 competitors. We arrived again as defending champions, and amid some very tough competition, came away with the ‘best overall team’ title for the eigth consecutive year.
As usual, the morning began with the Ballroom opens section, where couples compete for individual titles at various different levels: Beginners, Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Same Sex and Ex-Student. Our dancers achieved a number of excellent results across many of these events: Alistair Wilson & Kristie Ho came 6th in the Beginners Waltz and Rob Price & Daphne Chia came 3rd in Novice Ballroom. Markus Körbel & Nina Anderson continued to save Cambridge a spot in the Intermediate Ballroom final by becoming 5th. In Ex-student Novice Ballroom Michael Ha & Ellie Pring won 1st place. Especially successful was the Same-Sex Ballroom category for Cambridge. Two couples were in the final. Maddi Morelli-Batters & Tessa Teo came in 3rd, followed by Rachel Boscott & Rebecca Reiff-Musgrove in 5th place.
The Latin opens section included similar Cambridge successes: Evie Vennix & Katya Duncan came 6th in Beginners Cha and 2nd in Beginners Jive, joined by Nat Elks & Ruweena Perera (4th). Rob Price & Daphne Chia placed 5th in Intermediate Latin. In Advanced Latin, Sam Rowe & Inna Kaptcan placed also 5th. In Same-Sex Latin, Zosia Staniaszek & Anjali Jayasekera came 4th.
After watching these open events, we knew the Team Match in the evening was going to be a tough fight. However, the team rallied and achieved some incredible results. All six Cambridge teams (A-F) made it into the Division 1 category; our A-C teams all placed in the top 10. This success across all the teams is a testament to CUDT’s strength in depth. Although having had a huge change of dancers throughout the team, Cambridge gave its best throughout the year. Each individual dancer new or old CUDT member pushed right from the beginning of the season. In the final itself, our A Team fought against very tough competition from our biggest rivals, Imperial A and Oxford A, and placed 3rd. Cambridge B placed 6th. Once more, we came away with the best Overall Trophies – the team’s 8th consecutive National victory, and our 16th since the competition began in 1963. We also retained the Best Beginners’ Team Trophy.
All of this could not have been achieved without the hard work of our dancers, coaches, and committee members – a big thank to all those who contributed to our success!
With this victory behind us, CUDT now looks forward to its final events of the year – a tour to China for 4 of our couples in March, and the Varsity Match against Oxford on May 4th.