On the rebound from Varsity defeat, Dan James and Hertford soar to new heights Early on Saturday morning is perhaps the least likely time at which one might find a group of Oxford students bouncing up and down (with vomit-inducing abandon) of their own free will, yet this week Iffley Road played host to such a spectacle under the auspices of the trampolining Cuppers tournament. With the much vaunted panel of judges failing to show up, tournament organiser Lucy Raw was forced to assemble a motley crew whose lack of knowledge of the sport belied the commitment of the partcipants. Their inexperience was demonstrated in their setting a new record for the highest standard deviation of form marks in any trampolining competition in history. The event was split into three categories, novice, intermediate and advanced. Each group, in theory, had to perform a routine of ten moves, although, with the judges’ unfamiliarity with the rules apparently matched by many of the competitors, the number of skills performed by each competitor varied significantly. Yet the participants in each category showed considerable aptitude. In the novice section, Hertford’s welsh wonder Ellie La Trobe Bateman scored some of the best marks of the day to win by a clear four points from Oriel’s Felicity Bulmer. Keble’s James Kenny came third, his bitterness evident in shouting “Dan’s biased” when Herford captain Dan James awarded high marks to La Trobe. Kenny’s own college colleague Sarah Davis and St Hilda’s Jamie Brown finished fourth and fifth and a hard-fought contest. The intermediate contest was perhaps less hard fought, with the judges awarding the first three competitors 0.0, and Ben Arnold resorting to copying exactly the moves of Wadham’s Natasha Brereton, even falling on his arse at precisely the same juncture. Almost by default, veterans Kath Edward of Oriel and Alex Rowley of St.Annes won the section, with Sarah Day in third. In the advanced category, despite Univ’s Alex McAleenan’s attempts to impress the judges in her lycra, her efforts were only good enough for third place behind Wadham’s Elaine Bettaney [who scored her own personal best] and the winner, Hertford’s Dan James. The dimunitive James earned a truly massive points total, 59.2, finishing six points clear of Bettaney. Another Hertfordian, Emily Kemp displayed the athleticism familiar to fans of women’s volleyball [surely almost every man in the university] to finish fourth with 47.7 points, although the Essex girl thought she needed to do nine moves instead of ten. So Hertford claimed the trophy, taking it back to Catte Street where it will be lodged in the trophy cabinet alongside the fourth division rugby title they claimed last term and the third place pennant they won in shove ha’penny in 1956. Whether it was La Trobe’s poise, James’s good looks or Kempo’s east end contacts which decided the outcome, no-one can be sure. Yet, ultimately, trampolining was the winner, and the organisers can expect a higher turnout next year.ARCHIVE: 1st Week MT2003
