With another week comes yet more success stories, as UoB Sport looks set to record one of its most successful years to date.

Indoor Athletics

The first to make an appearance on this list of success stories is the indoor athletics team, who excelled in Sheffield and came home with two gold, one silver and four individual bronze medals. This earned UBSport a team bronze medal, capping a tremendous all-round effort.

The first of the two Gold’s landed by UoB were earned by Nick Cruchley, who blew away the competition in Pole Vault, winning the gold for the third consecutive year with an astounding jump of 5.40m.

Nick Cruchley climbing to glory and the gold medal

Speaking of his achievement, Nick said: “This was the best BUCS Championships I’ve done, there was good depth and a great head to head competition and I’m happy with my result.”

Forever the perfectionist, he added: “It would have been nice to have done 5.42m as that’s my coach’s record and I’d really like us to hold it together, maybe next year!”

Another of the UoB’s golden athletes, Caoimhe King, leapt to victory in the triple jump with an enormous hop, skip and jump of 12.88m- a massivve improvement on her 12.41m bronze in 2013. She also competed in the Long Jump and placed in a very respectable 4th place with a PB.

Caoimhe in the kit of her native Ireland

Speaking to The Tab after her gold she said:

“I am absolutely thrilled to come away with the win. I didn’t feel good going into the competition and didn’t think I jumped well so it was really good to win it off that! We have a brilliant team here this year and there is such a great team spirit.”

In another event, a fantastic team effort by Sebastian Tully-Middleton, Alex Lee, Jamie Vickery and Harry Ashman in the men’s 4x200m final meant that a silver medal was clinched in what proved to be a thrilling final.

The 200m relay runners posing with their silver medals.

Meanwhile, all the bronze medals came on the Sunday following a series of tremendous individual performances. Among these were Sarah McDonald‘s performance in the 1500m, Laura Riches’ in the 3000m and Ben Waterman’s in the 800m.

This meant that the University of Birmingham, at the end of the weekend, was placed third overall after a series of great performances across the board, earning the team a hard fought final bronze.

Head Coach Mike Bull was overjoyed with the result:

“It has been a great weekend, with great performances from the squad who as normal were admirably supported by their coaches, the Hi Performance Centre, the sports masseur and the clubs themselves.”

Cheerleading

On the 22-24 February, the UoB Pussycats Cheerleading Squad dazzled their way into 2^nd place at the Saturday Night Fever (SNF) Varsity competition held at the University of Bath.

Although they finished just 0.05 points away from the top spot, they provided the audience with an electrifying and memorable performance.

The team also performed magnificently in the group stunt competition, which they clinched first place in.

The Pussycats sitting proudly with their hard-earned trophy

Club Captain Hannah Meechan told the Tab:

“We were very proud of our performance and with how everyone dealt with the pressure. Our category was one of the toughest yet and everyone pulled together and performed so well.

The Cheerleaders show what they can do!

“The best part of being in the university cheer team is how close everyone is and how everyone works so hard not to let not only themselves but each other down. Cheerleading can only work if you work as a team and this university team have bonded so much this season!”

Smiles all round: Some of the girls pose next to their trophy

If you fancy watching their scintillating performance (which I very much recommend), you can find it here.

Squash

The UoB Squash Squad proved to be a formidable force at the BUCs Squash Individual Championships and enjoyed some particularly stand-out performances.

Chloe Mesic was crowned BUCS Individual Women’s A-Grade Champion after she saw off a stream of tough opponents – including another UoB student Hannah Williams.

A victorious Chloe Mesic.

Chloe was delighted about winning the prestigious gold medal. She told the Tab:

“I am very happy to have won the BUCS individual. It was one of my season goals. My happiness is greater than normal because I can share this title with all the other squash members and the high performance centre.”

“I feel like I won a team event because Birmingham Squash Club is like a second family for me. We train hard together, we compete together and we win together. I could not have achieved this goal without all the squash players, Jon and all the high performance centre.”

Chloe posing for the camera with her gold medal

The successes of the UoB team didn’t stop there, as Nia Tiefa Davies and Lauren Bayliss finished 1^st and 2^nd respectively in the Women’s B-grade. Beth Grinsell also finished 2^nd in the Women’s C-Grade competition and Robert Harrison finished 2^nd in the Men’s D-Grade competition.

Stay tuned for more Sporting Success next week. As the BUCs calendar comes to a close, there is sure to be many more great performances from UoB’s sporting stars.