MDX’s Sport Students bag four gold medals at the just concluded BUCS Championship
MDX’s Sport Students bag four gold medals at the just concluded BUCS Championship
23/02/2018
Last weekend, MDX students visited Sheffield to take part in six different competitions at the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) National Indoor Championships
Story by Zoe Ranford
Despite being one of the smallest team for a number of years, the MDX team brought home four Gold and seven medals overall, excelling at all the matches. Below is a detailed report on how our students performed across the different matches:
Fencing
With a small group of four novice fencers, Captain Francois Essii found his team paired against much more experienced competition. Two of the team however made it through to the plate but unfortunately their chances were lessened when they were matched against each other.
Francois made it to the quarter finals, where he was narrowly beaten. We are really proud of the team’s achievements this year.
Judo
Our 5 Judo fighters supported by their captain, Nuruzzaman Khan, gave an impressive performance, as expected from the squad.
Danius Stribys fought in the Under 73kg category and, as an athlete who is used to being undefeated, managed to win 5 out of 6 fights, narrowly missing out on a Silver medal and having to settle for a bronze although this was still a great achievement because this is the first time he has competed in a national championship.
Ron Pistner had a strong start this season after coming second at UEL Open. Fighting in the same category as team mate Danius, he lost his Gold to him. Once again at the BUCS competition, Rob won 4 out of 6 fights and finished in 4th place.
Jan Benes had an unfortunate weekend but gained a lot of experience. Jan moved to a new weight category for this, his second competition and at U81kg, Jan was unfortunately knocked out after 2 wins and 2 loses.
Mohez Khan kept up his impressive winning streak, after winning every fight and bringing home the Gold at UEL Open, he came back with even more determination, winning 6 out of 7 fights and sitting on top of the podium with a well-earned Gold Medal.
The 5th and final competitor, Deborah Sangola, also brought home a Gold Medal. Deborah is an experience Judo fighter and managed to earn her position on points and fights. We are incredibly proud of our Judo team and are excited to see what more they have to give with at least two more competitions still remaining.
Karate
Our squad of eight (five boys and three girls) had an eventful two-days competing in individual kata, individual kumite and team kumite.
Tanesha Balgobin started the weekend strong by winning a bronze medal in female novice kata. On Sunday, Tanesha once again displayed outstanding competency by winning a gold medal in female novice kumite! Malik Shittu also gave a strong performance taking the bronze medal in male novice kumite.
In team kumite both our female and male teams performed well in numerous hard matches. Sadly, our male team were narrowly defeated by Edinburgh University in the semi-final, and our female team came up against a stronger opponent in the quarter-final against Swansea University.
The team performed superbly over the weekend, especially considering many of the squad members have never competed before.
Swimming
Although Middlesex University does not have a swimming team, we avidly encourage students who excel in an area of sport to come forward and we always love to see students who are excited about representing Middlesex University. Samantha Humphrey is one of those students.
As a member of the netball team, she is already involved with sport at MDX. She is also a competitive swimmer and she qualified to compete for us at BUCS in the Women’s 50m Breaststroke, 50m Backstroke and 100m Backstroke.
Samantha won her heat in the 100m Backstroke, but unfortunately finished 2 seconds under the qualifying time. We would like to congratulate her on her strong performance considering she is just coming back from injury.
Badminton
This year saw the return of a Middlesex Badminton team, after a 6 year break, being captained by Alex Pandya. The male team have not dropped a game this year in their BUCS league, so had high hopes for BUCS in the individuals, doubles and recruiting two good female players, mixed doubles as well.
Unfortunately, their good fortune did not follow them in the BUCS championship with most not making it into the seeded part of the competition. The only person who performed beyond expectation was Sophie Owen-Davies who did reach the final 16 but that was where her competition ended.
The team fully supported each other and showed incredible camaraderie and team spirit and thoroughly enjoyed playing in such a high level competition. They will be back next year.
Athletics
Athletics captain John Adediji-Johnson took much smaller team than expected to BUCS which was due to the fact that UK athletics ran their indoor championships the same weekend and a number of our top-level athletes were selected to take part in the event in Birmingham.
Nevertheless, we still managed a gold medal. Masters student, Lia Stephenson gave a great performance in Women's Triple Jump.
After winning Bronze for Southampton University two years in a row, this year she came back with vengeance, representing Middlesex, and snatching that Gold away from UEL.
Sam Hazel came first in his heat for the Men's 200metres with a time of 22.55 seconds. He made the semi-final, but only managed to come third in the race. Although, he felt a bit disappointed, he had a new Personal Best for 200metres Indoor with a time of 22.06secs.
MDX’s Sport Students bag four gold medals at the just concluded BUCS Championship
Fencing
With a small group of four novice fencers, Captain Francois Essii found his team paired against much more experienced competition. Two of the team however made it through to the plate but unfortunately their chances were lessened when they were matched against each other.
Francois made it to the quarter finals, where he was narrowly beaten. We are really proud of the team’s achievements this year.
Judo
Our 5 Judo fighters supported by their captain, Nuruzzaman Khan, gave an impressive performance, as expected from the squad.
Danius Stribys fought in the Under 73kg category and, as an athlete who is used to being undefeated, managed to win 5 out of 6 fights, narrowly missing out on a Silver medal and having to settle for a bronze although this was still a great achievement because this is the first time he has competed in a national championship.
Ron Pistner had a strong start this season after coming second at UEL Open. Fighting in the same category as team mate Danius, he lost his Gold to him. Once again at the BUCS competition, Rob won 4 out of 6 fights and finished in 4th place.
Jan Benes had an unfortunate weekend but gained a lot of experience. Jan moved to a new weight category for this, his second competition and at U81kg, Jan was unfortunately knocked out after 2 wins and 2 loses.
Mohez Khan kept up his impressive winning streak, after winning every fight and bringing home the Gold at UEL Open, he came back with even more determination, winning 6 out of 7 fights and sitting on top of the podium with a well-earned Gold Medal.
The 5th and final competitor, Deborah Sangola, also brought home a Gold Medal. Deborah is an experience Judo fighter and managed to earn her position on points and fights. We are incredibly proud of our Judo team and are excited to see what more they have to give with at least two more competitions still remaining.
Karate
Our squad of eight (five boys and three girls) had an eventful two-days competing in individual kata, individual kumite and team kumite.
Tanesha Balgobin started the weekend strong by winning a bronze medal in female novice kata. On Sunday, Tanesha once again displayed outstanding competency by winning a gold medal in female novice kumite! Malik Shittu also gave a strong performance taking the bronze medal in male novice kumite.
In team kumite both our female and male teams performed well in numerous hard matches. Sadly, our male team were narrowly defeated by Edinburgh University in the semi-final, and our female team came up against a stronger opponent in the quarter-final against Swansea University.
The team performed superbly over the weekend, especially considering many of the squad members have never competed before.
Swimming
Although Middlesex University does not have a swimming team, we avidly encourage students who excel in an area of sport to come forward and we always love to see students who are excited about representing Middlesex University. Samantha Humphrey is one of those students.
As a member of the netball team, she is already involved with sport at MDX. She is also a competitive swimmer and she qualified to compete for us at BUCS in the Women’s 50m Breaststroke, 50m Backstroke and 100m Backstroke.
Samantha won her heat in the 100m Backstroke, but unfortunately finished 2 seconds under the qualifying time. We would like to congratulate her on her strong performance considering she is just coming back from injury.
Badminton
This year saw the return of a Middlesex Badminton team, after a 6 year break, being captained by Alex Pandya. The male team have not dropped a game this year in their BUCS league, so had high hopes for BUCS in the individuals, doubles and recruiting two good female players, mixed doubles as well.
Unfortunately, their good fortune did not follow them in the BUCS championship with most not making it into the seeded part of the competition. The only person who performed beyond expectation was Sophie Owen-Davies who did reach the final 16 but that was where her competition ended.
The team fully supported each other and showed incredible camaraderie and team spirit and thoroughly enjoyed playing in such a high level competition. They will be back next year.
Athletics
Athletics captain John Adediji-Johnson took much smaller team than expected to BUCS which was due to the fact that UK athletics ran their indoor championships the same weekend and a number of our top-level athletes were selected to take part in the event in Birmingham.
Nevertheless, we still managed a gold medal. Masters student, Lia Stephenson gave a great performance in Women's Triple Jump.
After winning Bronze for Southampton University two years in a row, this year she came back with vengeance, representing Middlesex, and snatching that Gold away from UEL.
Sam Hazel came first in his heat for the Men's 200metres with a time of 22.55 seconds. He made the semi-final, but only managed to come third in the race. Although, he felt a bit disappointed, he had a new Personal Best for 200metres Indoor with a time of 22.06secs.