This month’s performance of the month goes to UBSport’s new Lionheart Scholar, Joe Marsh. Joe raced against high quality opposition in the 50m Butterfly at the BUCS Long Course Championships and came away with a PB, club record and most impressively; a bronze medal. He also finished a superb 8th in the 100m Fly.
There were impressive swims from Phil Hodgson (2nd Year SportEx), who took a club record in the 200m fly while finishing 10th, and Alessandro Lazdins (2nd Year Medical Sciences), who put in a solid swim to rank 25th in the 100m Freestyle. The scholars teamed up with Matt James to finish 7th in the 400m medley relay and James Penfare to place 8th in the 400m freestyle relay.
Athletics
Several scholars lined up at the national indoor championships in Sheffield on the 11th and 12th. Fresher Jennie Batten (SportEx) made the final in the 200m, where she finished 6th, a position matched by Jonny Hay (1st Year Chemistry) in the 3000m, who ran his fastest time ever, indoors or out, to record 8.03.
At BUCS Indoors UBS scholars excelled in the field events, with gold for Nick Cruchely and 5th for Mike Sweeney (both 4th Year Sport and Material Science) in the pole vault, and 3rd for Simon Phelan and 6th for Mike in the High Jump.
Badminton
Two UBS Badminton scholars James Lauder (3rd Year Sport and Material Science) and Alyssa Lim (3rd Year English Literature) teamed up this month to great effect. At the national championships held in Bolton the pair reached the 2nd round, and then went on to reach the quarter finals at the York Gold competition held later in the month. Alyssa also excelled to reach the semi-finals in the Ladies Doubles event at the nationals, losing to the number one seeds, and also made it to the last 4 in the Ladies’ event at York. James also reached the quarter-finals in the men’s doubles in Bolton, losing to the winners from the previous year.
Cross Country
University of Birmingham Sports Scholars turned out in force at the biggest cross country competition of the year; the BUCS Championships. Braving snowy conditions in Cardiff the team recorded two individual golds from Jonny Hay and Hannah Walker (2nd Year Human Biology) as well as medals in the men’s and women’s team events. Hannah was followed into the finish by fellow scholars Pippa Woolven (1st Year SportEX) in 8th and new scholar Iona lake (1st Year Biological Sciences) in 13th to secure 2nd place, while Jonny led the Men’s A team to another silver medal.
The scholars were out in force again at the English National Cross Country Champs, held on the famously arduous course at Parliament Hill; Jonny took the Junior Men’s title while in the Junior women’s race Pippa finished 5th with Iona in 13th. Hannah also surpassed her own expectations, finishing 4th on her Senior Nationals debut, only 5 seconds behind the bronze medal.
Judo
Diego Scardone (3rd Year Political Science) competed at the Northern Home Counties on 12th February, and was pleased to come away with an individual bronze medal. Diego was also part of the Birmingham team who travelled to fight at the University of Warwick, where he competed in the Under 66kg category, and help the Birmingham to team bronze. Lucas Rowe (1st Year SPECS) also competed for the team this month, taking part in the University of Sheffield International Team Event. Lucas fought in the U81kg category and helped the team reach the quarter-finals where they narrowly lost to the Edinburgh A team.
Rowing
At the BUCS 4s and 8s Head, Andrea Ferrazzo (1st Year Environmental Science), Mark Jinks (4th Year Medicine), James Manfield (3rd Year Sports and Material Science) and team mate Daniel Clarke finished 7th in the men’s quadruple skulls while Sarah Lonergan (2nd Year Law) rowed with the women’s team who won the bronze medal in the coxless fours. At the varsity match against local rivals Warwick, Sarah rowed in the victorious women’s eights boat, and James and Andrea also competed successfully. Only the next day our scholars were in action again at the Head of the Severn competition; Andrea, Mark and James were part of the boat that rowed to a win in the men’s quad and Sarah took the opportunity to time trial in a single boat against women’s 4s and 8s, and was pleased to finish only 1 min 30s behind Birmingham’s coxed 8 boat.