Sport Success for St Mary’s Athletes

Students from St Mary’s University, Twickenham enjoyed sporting success at various events with two individual Gold medals and a team second place finish.

Sports scholar Tom Toolis, who trains at St Mary’s Endurance Performance and Coaching Centre (EPACC), won Gold in the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Modern Pentathlon in Oxfordshire. The event is competed over five sports: fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping and a final combined event of pistol shooting and cross country running.

First year Sport Science student Phoebe Law followed up her Gold at the English National Cross Country Championships last month with another first place finish, this time at Counties Athletics Union (CAU) Inter County Championships in the 8km cross country event in Loughborough, where she eased to victory by 42 seconds.

Elsewhere, St Mary’s Men’s Gaelic Football team came second in the British University Gaelic Football Championship in Birmingham. The team reached the final after winning all three group games against the University of Liverpool, University of Nottingham and last year’s winners Robert Gordon University but were beaten at the final hurdle by Liverpool Hope University.

In the BUCS Indoor Archery final, student Dara Paleski finished eighth in the Compound Women event while Danielle Tighe came 17^th in the Recurve Women event.

Tom Toolis said, “It has been a few years since I competed at the BUCS championships in Modern Pentathlon, and it was extremely enjoyable to come back and compete representing St Mary’s. The support they have provided this year with the Scholarship Scheme has enabled me to come back and win Gold.” 

Director for Sport at St Mary’s Andrew Reid-Smith said, “We are delighted to see another set of impressive results from our athletes.  The Gaelic football programme has a long tradition of excellence and came close to winning the student championship yet again.  It was really great to see Tom winning the Modern Pentathlon and Phoebe’s outstanding performance on an incredibly challenging course, saw her add this title to her win at the National Cross Country Championships.”