February 19, 2017, by Joseph Tanner

BUCS Nationals 2017 – Saturday Review

After a resolute start to the weekend’s matches, races and encounters on Friday in the BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) National Championships – the University of Nottingham continued the momentum on Saturday with hundreds of our students competing across eight different sports on the second day the UK-wide higher education sporting competition. Medal ceremonies were on the agenda for the green and gold in Sheffield for our judo, karate and trampolining clubs, while there were finalists and high finishers across the board on a thrilling day of competition.

It was a hugely successful one for the martial arts clubs. The first medal of the day came at Ponds Forge for the UoN Karate with a bronze in the team Kata. The men’s team kumite later also achieved another third place finish while the women’s kumite ended the day in fifth, after a ruthless display from all our sides in the arena. For UoN Judo, Gytis Jucikaz and Ali Pickwell in the -63kg division picked up more bronze medals for the Green and Gold at the All Saints Sports College.

Li Lian Yang, progressed to the semi-finals of the women’s singles in badminton yesterday evening. The number one seed is guaranteed a medal in her final match with Lydia Cheah of Team Derby – whom she has previously defeated this season. Meanwhile Hilda Ho and Vanessa Chien went through against number two seeds Tiara Samuel and Emily Witts in the women’s doubles fourth round, Witts unfortunately retired through injury in the UoN versus UoN encounter.

In the pool there was late drama on Saturday at Ponds Forge as James Newton and Courtney Price reached the 50 metre backstroke A final finishing eighth and sixth respectively. The latter achieved a personal best in doing so while it was Newton’s first ever BUCS final. Price also finished fifth in the 200 metre backstroke A final. Alex Kirtley and Will Rose also attained PB’s in the men’s 50 metre breaststroke and backstroke. A massive effort from the relay teams in the B 4 x 100 metre freestyle produced a sixth placed finish in the women’s and a seventh in the men’s. Nathan Hilton Head Coach of the University of Nottingham Swimming Club was brimming with pride after a fine day for UoN Swimming, “if you look at all the relays we’ve got closer this year time-wise. We’ve made two A finals in individual races, it’s been a good few years since that’s happened. Our strength and depth is better and growing.”

UoN Swimming in the pool at Ponds Forge after some excellent races from Nathan Hilton’s team

On the track in the EIS (English Institute of Sport), scholar and medal hopeful Tatum Souza unfortunately had to pull out of the 4x 200 metre relays due to injury, but the 24-year-old will still compete in the shotput final and long jump on Sunday. Elsewhere, Megan Gildea got a personal best in action in the 1500 metre semi-final along with Jack Millar who also progressed to the 3000 metre final.

The University of Nottingham BUCS big weekend – photos courtesy of Alex Wilkinson

Over at the Graves Tennis Centre for our fencing teams, Amy Parsons and Cara Chambers moved through to the last 32 of the women’s foil – following on from the two last 32 places achieved on Friday in the men’s epee. Parsons, in her eighth year of competing at the BUCS National Championships, finished in joint-sixteenth after a tough clash with Edinburgh’s Lissman. The veteran dueller said, “it’s been my best result in a long time, my first BUCS was 10 years ago. In my four years at Nottingham I’ve seen the club grow massively both in the participation and performance sides, we’ve seen our team members go from strength to strength. Seeing the standard here today, there are some of the top GB, European and International British fencers here, our fencers have done really well to reach the last 32s.”

Head of Performance Fencing at the University of Nottingham Paul Sibert said, “The majority have fenced up to power and a couple have exceeded expectations today, I think one of the things we’ve done over the past couple of years is achieve in teams above the expected ability. Competitors are gaining great experience here to consolidate their overall performance throughout the year. The club has grown massively over the years, the women got promoted to the BUCS Premier division two years ago and have retained their status, for the club as a whole the key factor has been teamwork in the reason why UoN Fencing has done so well.”

The green and gold’s climbing team had three hours to complete a ‘problem’ route in three separate rounds of action at The Climbing Works on the outskirts of the city, where 500 students were competing yesterday. The University of Nottingham climbers were hopeful of a high finish with the Sheffield universities providing tough competition and were not far off the pace when Chris Madar scored 190 points just 51 off of top spot mid-way through the day. Our trampolining competitors also demonstrated promising form at EIS iceSheffield with Max Moyes taking the gold in BUCS 5th division while Sarah Weston attained a sixth placed finish out of 113 participants in the BUCS 6 level.

With many athletes in finals on the last day of the BUCS Nationals, Sunday could see more medals and success for the green and gold at the Championships. You can follow the progress of UoN Sport at the nationals today via Facebook and Twitter and also the BUCS website. Best of luck to all our green and gold competitors in Sheffield today!

 

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