The disgraceful behaviour of Oxbridge students during a skiing competition has so appalled the sponsors that they have vowed never to back the contest again. Maybe it was too much to hope that a skiing trip for 2,500 students from Oxford and Cambridge Universities was ever going to be refined.But the ending of this year’s Varsity trip to the Alps descended to such levels of debauchery, one of the event’s chief sponsors has vowed never to get involved again.

The travel company offered a skiing holiday worth £5,000 for the team which won the end of the week’s Scott Dunn Valley Rally. But what the organisers failed to tell Scott Dunn was the nature of those contests. Desperate for victory, the winning team took off their clothes to pose for erotic images in the snow.

Some of those posing naked had pasta sauce and chocolate smeared over their bodies, while a crowd of 500 students looked on.

It didn’t stop there. In the challenge “smashing an egg in the most creative manner possible”, the winners from St Anne’s College, Oxford – whose alumni include Edwina Currie, Libby Purves and Mary Archer – excelled again.

With an egg between the buttocks of one team member, another smashed it with a wine bottle. They then ate the egg.

One of the winners admitted to Cherwell, the Oxford student newspaper, “I sold my dignity for a free holiday.”

Another said: “I think I may have got hypothermia but it was definitely worth it.”

Runners up, according to Cherwell, drank each other’s urine during the biggest student ski trip.

Scott Dunn must have seen the event, staged at the French resort Val Thorens, as a perfect opportunity to promote itself to Britain’s intellectual elite.

The company said in a statement issued to The Sunday Telegraph: “Scott Dunn recently learnt of reported bad behaviour by some of the participants of the Varsity Trip’s Valley Rally. “Scott Dunn in no way endorses any of the inappropriate behaviour reported.”

The company pointed out organisers had claimed the event was “a competitive, fun ski race between Oxbridge students”.

One of the organisers said: “I don’t know the exact details of what happened. The event is run the same as it is run every year and what the participants decide to do is very much their own choice.” He continued: “I guess the whole event is rather spectacular.”

The Varsity Trip has become a huge event in recent years, and is now billed as the biggest student ski trip anywhere in the world. The latest event, which took place in December, attracted more than 2,500 students – each paying a minimum £300.

The organisers had promised in their pre-trip publicity that with the resort offering “the cheapest booze prices in the French Alps, it promises to be wild”.

Other experiences of the Oxford and Cambridge students included “the highest pool and beach party in Europe, for people to escape the slopes and strip off”.