St Mary’s Athletes Shine at BUCS and British Indoor Championships

Athletes and Alumni from the Endurance Performance and Coaching Centre (EPACC) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham picked up a total of 12 medals across both the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Indoor Championships and the British Indoor Championships at the weekend.

St Mary’s picked up five Gold medals, three Silver medals and four Bronze medals across various events at the BUCS Indoor Championships in Sheffield and the British Indoor Championships in Birmingham.

Max Wharton picked up Gold in the Men’s 800m with sports scholar Canaan Solomon winning Bronze. There was another St Mary’s Gold in the Men’s 200m with Shemar Boldizsar registering a new Personal Best while the race also saw Keano-Elliot Paris-Samuel finish in sixth.

It was also Gold for sports scholar Emily Hosker-Thornhill in the Women’s 3000m with fellow St Mary’s student Emily Moyes finishing in seventh. In the Men’s equivalent race there were two top-five finishes with Paulos Surafel winning a Silver medal and Elliott Dorey coming fifth.

It was a new Personal Best for Abigail Nolan in the Women’s 800m as she picked up Bronze while a sixth place finish for Jeremy Barnes and ninth for Euan Campbell in the Men’s 1500m meant St Mary’s had 11 athletes with top nine finishes across the BUCS athletics events.

St Mary’s also boasted the highest representation of any university in the endurance final events at the BUCS Indoor Championships and was the most successful in terms of medals won.

Also at the BUCS Nationals, it was Silver for Sophia Terry in the Women’s (2Kyu & below) Under 57kg Judo event while Ayesha Fihosy reached the quarter finals in the Women’s Foil Fencing event, losing to eventual winner Chloe Dickson from The University of Edinburgh.

At the British Indoor Championships, EPACC athlete Jake Wightman picked up Gold in the Men’s 1500m with St Mary’s alumnus Charlie Grice winning Silver.

Alumnus Elliot Giles won Gold in the Men’s 800m with EPACC athlete Andrew Osagie picking up Bronze. It was also Bronze for EPACC athlete Adelle Tracey in the Women’s 800m, while fellow EPACC athletes Nick Goolab and Adam Clarke finished sixth and 10^th respectively, meaning there were seven top 10 finishes for St Mary’s at the British Indoors.

Aside from the two championships, St Mary’s took part in the BUCS Indoor Cricket Super 8s Championships after being ranked in the top eight in the country. The team beat Northumbria University but lost to the University of Portsmouth and the University of Leeds, meaning they went out at the group stage.

Director for Sport at St Mary’s Andrew Reid-Smith commented, “I am delighted to see another set of strong performances from our athletes and alumni and an impressive medal haul to add to the recent BUCS cross-country success.”