August’s performance of the month goes to 3rd year English student Alyssa Lim for her excellent performance in the badminton competition at the World Student Games in Shenzhen, China.
In the team competition Great Britain reached the play-offs for 7th-8th places, and beat Malaysia 3-2 to take 7th place, helped on their way by a victory in the mixed doubles from Alyssa and her partner Chris Coles (Bath University). Not only did this result signal a victory over the Malaysian team whom Team GB had never beaten before, but was also the highest position ever achieved by GB in the competition. Alyssa also competed in the individual mixed doubles event with Paul van Rietvelde, reaching the final 16 but eventually losing to highly ranked competition 21-15, 21-15.
Other Notable Performances
Rowing
Sarah Lonergan travelled to Moscow to compete in the 7th European Universities Rowing Championships 30th August - 2nd September. She competed in the women’s heavy-weight singles, and finished 2nd in the ‘B;’ final. Sarah was pleased with her performance, as she was unlucky to miss out on qualification for the ‘A’ final after being drawn in the faster semi-final. Her time in the ‘B’ final would actually have given her a 5th place finish in the A final in an event with the second-highest number of entries in the entire competition, and was therefore a very respectable performance.
Athletics
James Wilkinson (3rd year Sport and Exercise Science) smashed his 3000m steeplechase PB at the Diamond League meeting at Crystal Palace running 8.36.50 compared to previous best of 8.40.52 to finish 9th, an excellent performance which he then followed up with a PB of 3.45 in the 1500m only 4 days later.
In-form fresher Hannah Walker (Human Biology) ran as the only female competitor in the British Miler’s Club 10,000m race held at the University of Birmingham on the 13th August, and recorded a very respectable 33.09.50 on her debut over the distance.
At the Loughborough LEAP meeting on the 10th of August out-going VPS Julian Adeniran recorded a new 110m hurdles PB of 13.74, while Lionheart scholar Mike Sweeney (3rd Year Sport and Materials Science) finished in 1st place at the North West Combined events championships.
Hockey
Ben Stoney represented the England U21 team in their competitions against Scotland in the middle of August and scored the final goal of the second match to add to England’s impressive total of 7 goals to Scotland’s 1.
Also in action for England Under21s were Holly Payne and Holly Chipman who both picked up goals in the match against France in July.
Alumni Watch
After performing well at the UK Trials event earlier in the summer former UoB athletes Louise Hazel and Hannah England were in action at the World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea. Hannah ran a tactically brilliant race and found herself at the back of the lead pack with 200m to go. Using her fast finish she powered past the rest of the field and crossed the line in second, picking up the silver medal. Louise achieved personal bests in the 100m hurdles, high jump, and shot put, finishing in 15th with 6149 points to improve on her performance of 6008 in Berlin in 2009.