St Mary’s Athletes pick up BUCS Outdoor Medals

Students and Endurance Performance and Coaching Centre (EPACC) athletes at St Mary’s University, Twickenham earned three wins and six podium finishes at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Outdoor Track and Field Championships during the bank holiday weekend.

The championships in Bedford saw 20 athletes representing St Mary’s, including nine sport scholars, with nine of them earning top-four finishes in their respective events.

Scholar Emily Moyes retained her title in the Women’s 2000m Steeplechase after an impressive 6:42.21 run while Dan Jarvis picked up Gold in the Men’s 3000m Steeplechase after winning his heat to progress through to the final.

Emile Cairess followed up last month’s second place in the Men’s 5K Road Championships with a Gold in the Men’s 5000m, which also saw fellow scholars Ellis Cross pick up Bronze and twin brothers Petros and Paulos Surafel finish sixth and 16^th respectively.

Scholar Canaan Solomon won Silver in the Men’s 800m after he qualified through the preliminary and semi-finals to continue his impressive year, in which he has finished in the top of every major event so far, while fellow scholar Sean Molloy finished sixth in the same race.

St Mary’s final medal came in the Men’s 800m Wheelchair race as Will Smith picked up Bronze while he also finished fourth in the Men’s 100m Wheelchair event. Scholar Emily Hosker-Thornhill, who won Gold at last month’s BUCS 10,000m Championships, came fourth in the Women’s 5000m while Georgie Hartigan finished in the same position in the Women’s 1500m.

There were two St Mary’s representatives in the Men’s 1500m which saw EPACC athlete Elliott Dorey, who appeared at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and Adam Moore finish eighth and ninth respectively while Lilly Coward came seventh in the Women’s 800m, Nicole Kendall eighth in the Women’s 400m and the St Mary’s Women’s 4x100m relay team finished sixth.

Louis Mascarenhas also performed strongly as he finished fifth in the Men’s Shot Put final, after easing through the preliminary round while narrowly missing out on a medal in the Discus Throw as he finished fourth.

Director of Sport at St Mary’s Andrew Reid-Smith, said, “The Championships saw some exciting events and a high standard of student competition. St Mary’s athletes performed exceptionally well to cap off what has been an excellent season where they’ve consistently performed as one of the top universities.”