The Lancaster University Ballroom society invaded the Great Hall on Sunday, yet despite their best efforts, were unable to steal the title from last year’s winners, York.
The competition began with the walk-on where the competitors of all standards can join together as a form of introduction to the audience. The competition was spilt into four sections: Beginners Ballroom, Beginners Latin, Advanced Ballroom and Advanced Latin. For each competition, dancers from both Lancaster and York would position themselves on stage ready to showcase their dancing moves to a waiting judge.
The Beginners Ballroom saw couples dance to the waltz and the quickstep. Yet despite Lancaster couples Jennifer Hughes and Caroline Cropper winning first place for their waltz and Ben Marshall and Alice Burrow being awarded first place in the quickstep, Lancaster were unable to score a win with York receiving 18 points to York’s 24 points.
The Beginners Latin included the cha cha and the jive with two of Lancaster’s own couples securing first place positions. Waltz winners, Marshall and Burrows continued their success by winning the cha cha whilst Lucy Fisher and Rachel Price were awarded first place for their jive. Overall, Lancaster was able to bring home a point with Lancaster scoring a total of 23 points to York’s 19 points.
The Advanced Ballroom was spilt into three different dances: the waltz, the tango and the quickstep. Taking part in the Advanced Ballroom section was York’s Luke Malkin, who has not been defeated at Roses yet winning the previous two years. Despite this Lancaster were able to secure two out of three of the top places knocking Malkin from his winning strike with Andrew Pickup and Jodie Waggoner winning both the tango and the quickstep. Sadly, this was not enough to score Lancaster a high mark and York won the point with 34 points to Lancaster’s 29.
The final competition was Advanced Latin which included the cha cha, the rumba and the jive. Serial winners, Pickup and Waggoner were able to add another two trophies to their collection after winning first place in the cha cha and the rumba meaning that they had won every event that they had competed in. Anthony Cook and Deborah Flitcroft from Lancaster secured first place in the jive. However, once again despite Lancaster sweeping the board for first place, they were beaten by rivals York scoring 35 points to Lancater’s 28.
In spite of their defeat, the Lancaster team appeared in high spirit claiming they had doubled their points from the previous team. Four times winners, Pickup and Waggoner commented
“We only started dancing together two weeks before we broke up for Easter and we’ve have put in lots of practice since then so we are really happen with our wins”.
