Highest placed Welsh University and 11th in BUCS rankings ends a successful year for Cardiff University
11 August 2017
The British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Awards were held last month hosted by The University of Hertfordshire as part of the annual BUCS Conference. This year two Cardiff University students, Lewis Oliva (Medicine) and Manon Carpenter (Geology) were nominated for BUCS Sportsman of the Year and BUCS Sportswomen of the Year respectively. A huge privilege and achievement for both students to be shortlisted out of hundreds of nominations and the whole UK Higher Education sector. Lewis was named BUCS Sportsman of the Year, after his performances at BUCS track cycling, winning the BUCS sprint and setting a new BUCS record in the process, alongside external successes making the podium at various World Cup events and representing Great Britain at the World Track Cycling Championships. Lewis is in great company winning the prestigious award with the likes of Jonny Brownlie and Adam Gemili previous winners. The overall BUCS rankings have also been finalised for the 2016-2017 academic year with Cardiff University finishing 11th, matching our position last year, and also the highest ranked Welsh University. So it’s been another really positive year which we look to build upon for 2018!
For the majority of the HPP the summer is a busy period of competing both domestically in the UK and abroad, so here’s a performance update for summer 2017 so far. Beth Morris (Golf) represented Wales Women at the European Ladies Amateur Golf Championships held in Switzerland and Dean Bale (Rifle) represented Great Britain at the European Junior Championships competing in both the 3P and prone competitions. Zoe Kennerley represented Wales Women Water Polo at the EU home nations event in the Czech Republic and Phoebe Smith represented Wales at the Women’s World Cup event, where Wales made it to the quarter finals, narrowly losing to England. Three of our netballers, Sarah Llewelyn, Chloe Dyke and Leila Thomas represented Wales U21 at the World Youth Championships held in Botswana, where Wales finished 13th. Lewis Oliva (Cycling) recently raced at the Helsinki Grand Prix winning the Sprint, Keirin and Kilo, setting the kilo track record in the process on the 1952 Olympic Velodrome!
It’s been good news for Morfudd Ifans (Rugby) who has been selected as part of the Wales Women World Cup Squad and Coral Kennerley (Pistol) selected to represent Wales at the Commonwealth Shooting Championships, which is being held at the venue for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Cardiff University Alumni have also been busy this summer. Last month, Heather Knight led England Women to a brilliant World Cup glory beating India by 9 runs in a closely contested final. Both Robyn Wilkins and Elinor Snowsill have been selected alongside Morfudd Ifans as part of the Wales Women squad for the Women’s Rugby World Cup and Dan Kyriakides, Sophie Clayton and Rupert Shipperley are representing Wales in the Eurohockey II Championships this August. Tom Barras has also been selected to represent Great Britain at the World Rowing Championships which are being held in Florida next month.
There is still plenty of action left over the summer months for many HPP and Cardiff University students and we wish them all the best with their upcoming competitions!