Full Blues 

Full Blues are awarded to students who have competed for a University First team for two years, along with two years representation at international level.

Elizabeth Rees for Archery

Throughout Lizzy’s time at the University of Bath, she has had exceptional podium finishes as part of the Archery 1st team. Alongside this she has competed for GBR in the sport of field archery at three international events including the junior world championships in 2014, the senior European championships and for England in the senior home nations championships in 2015.

Fiona Burnet for Hockey

A month after starting at the University of Bath Fiona won her first 3 senior international caps playing against Germany, days after her 18th birthday. Fiona has now represented Scotland and gained 12 international caps. Fiona’s aim is to be selected for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, with her ultimate goal being the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Natasha Starling for Tennis 

After picking up her first tennis racket at the mere age of 3, Natasha has gone on to compete individually and within teams at both National and International level. Natasha was 1 of 3 selected (and the only Bath representative) to represent GB Universities, in both singles and doubles at the BNP Paribas Masters Event 2012/13.

Honorary Blue

Awarded to any person who has made an outstanding contribution to the development of University Sport.

Henry Milton

Henry took charge of the University’s largest recreational offer - Inter-Departmental Football in his second year. Here he restructured the league to prevent dropout, improve fairness and raise competition between teams.

Henry has also organised various courses for students to gain recognised qualifications and has doubled the size of the 6-a-side recreational football offer to provide for 100 teams.

This year he has gone above and beyond, reaching into the local community and organising for sixth form students to come and watch games while looking around the University, inspiring these young people to attend Bath.

Henry arranged decision making workshops with professional FIFA referee Lee Probert which gave students a real insight into the difficult world of refereeing. In addition, Henry introduced the women’s development setup which has led to more female students playing football than ever before.

Emily Purpuri

Since her graduation in 2006, Emily has coached as a volunteer and is a mentor to student volunteer coaches within the Trampoline Club.

As a Senior Club Coach, she is the club’s highest qualified coach and through her, the trampoline members (from beginner to elite levels) were able to achieve Gold medals at the BUCS 2016 Nationals.

Emily also judges for trampolining interuniversity competitions, enabling more competitors to take part, and runs the internal judging course to allow members to become judges for a reduced price.

Emily has been instrumental in the development of the club and its athletes for 14 years and continues to influence the performance as a club both competitively and recreationally. Her encouragement and involvement are a fundamental asset to the club.

The Gethin John Bevan, Club Member of the Year award 

This award acknowledges that SU Sport clubs would not function without a substantial input from student volunteers.

 

 

 

We have been overwhelmed this year by the dedication of three incredible students who have put their heart and soul into the respective clubs. The Blues Committee tried their hardest to separate them but finally came to the conclusion that they all deserved this special award.

Hannah Lawless – Rugby Club 

Despite having a limited rugby background before coming to university, Hannah is the most dedicated and hard-working member of the Rugby Club. Many actions go unseen by the members but without her over the last three years the club would have struggled. 

To highlight just a few, Hannah has ensured members have access to tournaments outside of BUCS. She organised countless friendlies, for the women’s rugby team, scouting out new opposition for players with little experience. She has planned for external coaches to come in to improve skills and game sense, as well as coaching herself when the occasion calls. In addition to this, Hannah has organised several coaching courses with the RFU, improving the club from the players within. She has coordinated countless club recruitment days, planning every detail and gaining many new players, some who have never previously considered rugby.

Hannah orchestrates the entire committee and club development while working to an exceptional level with the SU Sport Staff who value her work immensely.

Lauren McCann and Kim Wilkinson for Rowing

Taking on one of the biggest clubs in numbers and turnover is no laughing matter. Highlighting that only a small amount of members actually get to row due to poor equipment is even more of a concern as you’ve then identified an extremely difficult and expensive challenge.

Kim and Lauren have started a culture change within the club and although members pay more than any other club they know that the club needs more money to survive. With an entire fleet in desperate need of replacement they have worked out an equipment replacement scheme that will help maximise BUCS points, and allow female athletes to use lightweight boats.

Lauren and Kim have continued to work and improve the sometimes difficult relationship with the community club and ensured a transparent approach is taken with communication and discussions.

Their approach and communication with SU Sport has been invaluable and their actions will support the club in future years.

The David VandeLinde Award 

The David VandeLinde Prize recognises sporting accomplishment, leadership and academic success. 

Natasha Starling

 

 

Natasha is currently the  Women's 1st Tennis Captain, leading the team in what has been an exceptional BUCS career during her time at the University of Bath. Since joining the University in 2012, Natasha has played an integral role in winning 3 Premier South League titles and 3 BUCS Championship Finals. Natasha has been involved in the accumulation of over 391 BUCS points, alongside this impressive feat as a team, Tash has also won 2 Gold Medals and a Bronze at Tennis Individuals events, taking her medal count to 5 Gold and 1 Bronze.

On top of her dedication to student sport Tash’s academic studies are on course for a 1^st in Business Administration.

 

The Tugendhat Trophy for Sporting Endeavor 

This award recognises the successes achieved by student athletes in new areas, unfamiliar to them before their arrival at University.  The prize will be awarded to a student who has started a sport as a fresher and gone on to improve sufficiently and achieve a BUCS podium finish inside three years.

Benjamin Oswin

 

Since starting lacrosse in the 2013/14 academic year, Ben has become an integral member of the Men's 1st team and this year has captained them to win the Southern Premier league after only being promoted three seasons ago. He not only captained, but he also coached his team to win every away match with the team scoring 132 goals throughout the season, many of which Ben assisted and scored himself.

It is quite clear that Ben is a great captain and has really helped to develop the standard of lacrosse within the men’s team, propelling them to their most successful season to date.

Team of the Year award

This award is open to the first team of any sport, and will be presented purely on the level of performance and achievement during the past 12 months.

Nominees 

Women’s Tennis 1^st team:

The 2014/15 season marked the fourth consecutive year where the Women’s 1st’s won both the Premiership South and BUCS Championship, an achievement no other Bath team has come close to accomplishing. Additionally, at the 2015 BUCS Individuals Event, the University of Bath girls picked up another Gold medal in the doubles event.

The Women’s 1 Tennis regained their league title and won the BUCS Championship in 2015 to remain the best UK University for women’s tennis. They gained 100% of the available 100 BUCS points in the 2014/15 season from winning both the Premiership South and BUCS Championship.

Men’s Lacrosse 1^st Team:

The Men’s Lacrosse 1^st team has followed an impressive path of progress since its formation, culminating in its most recent success this season winning the Southern Premiership.

The team won eight of their ten league games this year, winning every away fixture and achieving an impressive overall goal difference of +62. The title was fiercely contended with the top three teams all finishing within two points of each other.

Winning the league is a phenomenal achievement, especially considering the majority of the squad are complete beginners when starting university.

Women’s Badminton 1st Team:

The Women’s Badminton 1^st team have had an incredible season, finishing their league season unbeaten in the Southern Premier Division.  Over the ten matches they won eight of them 8-0, and conceded just 5 games in total. This is the seventh consecutive year that they have been successful in winning the Southern Premier Division, and secured the University of Bath 50 BUCS points.

Further to this, having been knocked out in the quarter finals of the Championship Cup for the past 2 years and having not made the final for at least 5 years, the team won a tight quarter final against Birmingham 5-3. They then followed this up with a 7-1 win over Nottingham to make it to BUCS Big Wednesday this year.  Here they lost to a strong Loughborough team, containing the current number 2 ladies’ singles player and one of the top 4 ladies’ doubles pairs in England.

 

Results

1^st Women’s Tennis 1^st Team 

2^nd Women’s Badminton 1^st Team 

3^rd Men’s Lacrosse 1st Team

 

Club of the Year award

This award recognises the success and substantial achievements clubs can attain when they function effectively as a whole.

Nominees 

The Badminton Club

The club has exceeded its membership target by 75 members, taking its membership to 355. It continues to run 6 recreational sessions each week, supervised by the committee, two of which are ‘No Strings’ sessions which are accessible to the local community as well as students.

The club ran a social tournament in aid of Macmillan as part of Badminton England’s “Badminton 4 Macmillan” week, and the club has also got involved in running a disability sport adaptive session.

The Trampoline Club

The club was selected as a Southern Universities Trampoline League (SUTL) host, enabling a large scale competition to take place here at Bath, as part of the league. This event attracted competitors from a huge number of universities, with over 400 students competing during the day. The success of this event means that Bath Competition remains a firm fixture in the competition diaries of all southern universities.

As well as a competitive side, the club has put in a huge effort working towards and achieving the Students’ Union Inclusivity Award. As part of this the club took part in Disability Sport Day, helping to promote the club to underrepresented groups. Recently they developed “features” of postgraduate and international students, highlighting barriers that they had overcome within sport. To encourage others, the club have run a successful mini committee scheme, which enables students considering committee to gain some experience by helping with the organisation of the annual training camp.

Cheerleading Club

The University of Bath Cheerleading Club has gone only from strength in the past few years with over 180 members. They caters for all abilities with less than 10% of their members having tried Cheerleading before.  The club coach all their sessions internally which involves organising their own coaching course. Running over two days in the STV, Bath cheerleaders and external universities travelled to attend.

The club have also had a successful season at the Nationals which took place in the winter term. Here they took home five 1^st place trophies and two 2^ndplace trophies, proving to be their best performance at a National competition to date.

They have also continued to support the Students’ Union and other clubs, performing at the Launch Night of Fresher’s Week, Varsity 2016 and Derby Day. Cheerleading has also had a large involvement with the wider community through fundraising for charities with 40 of their members supporting the Bath Half

Results 

1^st The Trampoline Club

2^nd The Cheerleading Club

3^rd The Badminton Club

Sports Personality

This award recognises a student who has contributed significantly to student sport during their time at University, and encapsulates the spirit of University Sport and Pride at Bath. Their positive contribution may take many forms, including performance, service, and participation. Candidates may have achieved outstanding levels of performance, represented the University in a number of sports, or had significant input into a team, both on and off the pitch.

From the short list selected by the Blues Committee, students had the opportunity over the past week to cast their votes to decide tonight’s winner and Sports Personality of the Year.

The shortlist was:

Natasha Starling

Tash is a recognisable name and face this evening and someone that deserves the Sports Personality nomination. Tash is a student and athlete that lives and breathes her sport.

Along with everything else we’ve heard this evening Tash is a formerly world (WTA) ranked player for both singles and doubles, and Top 20 UK Open female player. Tash joined the University in 2012 in order to pursue her business interests alongside her tennis career.

Throughout Tash’s time at University, she has represented the women’s 1st team, playing at number 1 or 2 in the singles and 1st pair doubles. During her placement year in London Tash ensured she could travel back and support the team and club with BUCS.

Tash was proudly invited to become a member of the International Club of Great Britain, a prestigious International Tennis Club for competitors who have represented GB. The International Club of Great Britain competes yearly against 38 other Nations, ensuring that Tash can maintain her GB representation after she has graduated this year.

Jay Lelliott

Jay is hoping to make his Olympic debut at the Rio 2016 Games after another impressive year on the international swimming stage.

Jay competed at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and won 400m freestyle Bronze on his Great Britain debut at the European Championships in 2014.

He won a 1,500m freestyle Bronze medal at the 2015 British Championships and was selected to represent Great Britain at the World University Games in South Korea.

The Santander Sports Scholar was one of GB’s best performers at the Games, winning Gold in a thrilling 400m freestyle final and smashing the national 800m freestyle record as he took Silver in that event.

Alexandra Walker

Alexandra completed her Master degree in Business this September, having been supported by the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) during her studies.

On the tennis court, Alex started the year by winning a British Tour event at the University of Bath and she then teamed up with Business Administration student Natasha Starling to take the women’s doubles crown at the BUCS Individual Tennis Championships in March having won the singles title 12 months earlier.

Alex also took on the role of University Tennis Coordinator during 2015, in which she provides opportunities for students, staff and the general public to get involved in the sport.

Elizabeth Rees

Lizzy has been involved in the sport of archery since the age of four when her parents introduced her to the sport.

Throughout Lizzy’s time at the University of Bath, she has competed for GBR in the sport of field archery at three international events as demonstrated in Lizzy's successful Full Blue Award this evening. 

Lizzy is now a final year BSc student reading Sports Performance Analysis at the University. She was awarded a Santander sports scholarship for her time at the University to help her further her sporting potential. Lizzy has competed for the University at BUCS throughout her University career, being the undefeated champion at BUCS indoors events. She also secured an Outdoors Silver medal in 2014, while adding to this impressive collection in 2015 with an Outdoors Gold medal and a BUCS record. 

Lizzy’s national and international career continues this summer at the World Field Archery Championships hosted by Southern Ireland. She has also recently been appointed as the coaching officer for the South West and was voted onto the Board of Directors for Archery GB allowing to her to not only compete but work to develop her sport for the future.

The University of Bath’s Sports Personality of the Year 2016, as voted for by the students, is Natasha Starling