Loughborough College has been named as ‘one to watch’ at the national finals of one of the country’s largest sporting events, set to take place this weekend.
Following months of fierce competition, more than 1600 students from across the UK will compete at the 2018 Association of Colleges Sport National Championships, now in its 40th year.
Loughborough College is sending the region’s largest team to the Championships with 72 athletes selected to compete across nine sports.
Representing in the men’s and women’s volleyball, men’s tennis, women’s table tennis, women’s rugby, women’s hockey, men’s and women’s golf, women’s football and men’s basketball, AoC Sport called the College’s contribution to the regional team this year “huge”, adding “Loughborough College are definitely ones to watch at the National Championships.”
It is testament to the growing success of Academy Sport at Loughborough College that there are almost four times as many athletes competing this year as there were in 2015. In addition to the teams, students Killian Ryan and Kirsten Thorpe will be on the golf course, Eve Dale competes in badminton, Shannon Graves in table tennis and men’s singles tennis players lining up include Matt Howse, Oliver Burt, Edward Bettersby and Oliver Aley.
Women’s rugby will be hoping to better last year’s silver medal win and both women’s football and men’s basketball are making their competition debut.
“It’s fantastic that the women's football team have reached the final, in the first year of the high performance programme at the College. It is also a first for the men’s basketball team who will be competing against Academy Basketball League colleges, a League we are hoping to be involved with next year,” said Loughborough College Sport Development Manager Rob Jarram.
“This year’s achievements have led to us being identified by AoC Sport as ‘one to watch’ at the Championships and show that not only are we again the college from the region with the most students attending but we also have a lot of students and teams with medal potential.
“It's important to recognise that this is all as a result of the hard work that began back in summer last year, from pre-season to all the early morning training and a lot of dedication from staff and students. It's a very large team effort!”
The 2018 AoC Sport National Championships take place in Nottingham from 20-22 April.
Pictured: Loughborough College has the region’s largest number of athletes competing at this year’s AoC Sport National Championships and has been called ‘one to watch’