This yr’s version of the occasion will witness an necessary milestone in its lengthy historical past.
Other than the English Nationwide Cross Nation Championships, the Oxford-Cambridge College Cross Nation race is the oldest inter-club match in existence.
The primary race was hosted in Oxford in 1880 and run over a 7½ mile course which began from the Royal Oak pub on Woodstock Street.
Solely accessible to males for nearly 100 years, each golf equipment opened to feminine members within the early Seventies, as a result of regular rise within the numbers of ladies college students at each universities within the post-war interval.
On November 15 1975, Oxford’s girls took half of their first official race, a contest towards Birmingham College at Shotover. Two weeks later, the very first race towards Cambridge was staged on the similar venue alongside the boys’s races for the second, third, fourth and fifth groups. Oxford received comfortably by seven factors to 14 in a three-to-score contest with Cathy Meunier (St Hugh’s) taking the person honours.
The next yr, the race moved to a a lot firmer footing because it was elevated to official standing and run alongside the boys’s Blues race hosted by Thames Hare and Hounds on Wimbledon Frequent in London. Oxford once more had been victorious, filling the primary six locations to win with an ideal rating of 10 factors to Cambridge’s 34. Lynne Wightman (Girl Margaret Corridor) had the honour of profitable that first official race.
Within the intervening 50 years, the race has flourished. It continues to be run alongside the boys’s contest on the south-west London venue and over 300 runners from Oxford and Cambridge have represented their respective universities.
For some, it has been their very own private Everest and for others a stepping stone to higher achievements. Included on this illustrious checklist are Olympians Stephanie Cook dinner, Mara Yamauchi, Sian Brice, Emma Pooley, Julia Bleadsale, Claire Hallissey and Louise Shanahan.
With the event of the race, the 2 golf equipment have strengthened significantly for the reason that Seventies and have gone onto obtain wider recognition to the extent that, between them, they’ve secured 4 victories within the British Universities’ cross-country championships, in 1988, 1989 and 2000 by Oxford and 2025 by Cambridge.
Taking account of the 1975 race, Oxford leads the collection by 29 wins to twenty. The 2025 version will happen at 15:00 GMT, beginning and ending at Thames Hare and Hounds’ headquarters at Roehampton Vale.
The occasion shall be preceded by the thirty second Outdated Blues’ Race (12:30 GMT) and 134th males’s race (14:00 GMT).
Tamsin Sangster, Girls’s Captain of Oxford College Cross Nation Membership, stated: “I’m so proud to be the captain of the extremely gifted and inspirational girls of OUCCC, whose dedication to aggressive operating has produced numerous private and membership successes this yr. This particular anniversary shall be an thrilling celebration of previous and current members who’ve contributed to our achievements.
“OUCCC is endlessly grateful to the ladies and men who paved the best way for girls’s participation within the Varsity Match. I sit up for the subsequent 50 years of much more power in operating from the ladies of OUCCC.”
Lilian Lewis, Girls’s Captain of Cambridge College Hare and Hounds: “It has been a pleasure to be the ladies’s captain for the Cambridge College Hare and Hounds this yr and practice alongside such gifted and devoted athletes for the previous three years.
“Throughout this time, I’ve seen the ladies’s aspect of the membership proceed to develop, with us now in a position to choose a Girls’s Thirds workforce for the primary time ever. On this anniversary yr it’s thrilling to have the ability to convey the variety of Girls’s Varsity groups equal to the Males’s aspect. I can’t look ahead to this yr’s Varsity and to see what the subsequent 50 years of Girls’s Varsity brings.”
Full race particulars might be discovered right here.
Additional particulars on the historical past of the race might be discovered right here.
