One of the biggest sporting weekends of the year! Bath are once again off to Sheffield for BUCS nationals, and I’m so excited to be coming along, with Owen (Exec Media officer) to cover the event! We’re bringing 135 athletes sporting the Blue and Gold, to compete in Athletics, Badminton, Climbing, Fencing, Judo, Karate and Swimming at a variety of different levels!
Athletics are hoping to come back from Sheffield with some great results this year, from fresh-faces and experienced BUCS athletes alike. When asked about what BUCS nationals means to the Athletics club, and the 28 athletes attending, Chair, Matt Freeman said:
’BUCS Indoors gives most of our team the first chance to compete for the university this year, putting all the hard winter training into action. We've had great success in Sheffield over the past few years including 2 indoor 400m titles in a row from Cameron Chalmers, and multiple BUCS golds for athletes Beth Kennedy and Olivia Caesar who have also been involved in team relay golds and still train at the university now.’
Keep an eye out for Georgia Silcox in the 60m hurdles, Matt Faye in the pole vault as well as multiple-time medal winner Isobel Ives who could add to her tally in the 800m.
Fencing are bringing 17 athletes to their individual championships, and are looking to the huge development opportunity that nationals provide:
‘BUCS individuals is the highlight of the BUCS fencing calendar. There are many high-level athletes in attendance including former and current members of international teams from Great Britain, Hong Kong, Argentina, Germany, Hungary to name a few. Due to the fact that they compete in different leagues, a number of our fencers have not yet had the opportunity to compete against some of these athletes. This is, therefore, also extremely beneficial to development fencers who are allowed the chance to grow their fencing by competing against those with greater experience. They also get exposure to the structure and pressures involved in individual competitions. The dynamics of individual competitions differ greatly to those of the BUCS team leagues, and BUCS individuals gives them an insight into this environment. With members of the club who have previously medalled in this competition multiple times, this competition is highly anticipated by many students here.’- Olivia Wray and James Russell, Ladies and Mens team captains
It should be another exciting year for Judo, who are bringing 21 athletes to see if they can beat the total of 9 medals they got last year- taking just under a third of the Bath total! The competition is broken down by gender, weight and belt. This allows a challenging competition at all stages for the athletes coming along to Sheffield. For our highest level athletes, there’s the opportunity to match up against national level players, and there’s a great opportunity for athletes that had never done Judo before uni to get some competitive experience, and even medal!
The Mountaineering Club are sending 9 of their athletes to the Climbing Championships in Sheffield this weekend, with a mixture of athletes from first to fourth year.
‘We’re very proud to have several team members who discovered climbing at university with The Mountaineering Club and have now progressed through to BUCS level! The team have shown amazing dedication, travelling to climbing centres in Bristol multiple times a week to train as a squad, hopefully resulting in our strongest performing team to date! We’re particularly hopeful for our Women’s squad, which has been developing at great pace over the last few years and is now becoming a major competitor for BUCS points. Best of luck to the team!’ – Conor Smith, Mountaineering Chair.
We’re also anticipating some huge performances from our athletes competing in Swimming (22), Badminton (15) and Karate (23) as well! One thing’s for sure, this weekend is going to be jam-packed with Blue and Gold!
Keep up to date with everything on the SU Instagram and the live stream on the BUCS Website!
