51Âþ»­

Last weekend was a busy one at the 2019 BUCS Nationals for #Team51Âþ»­. Seven different sports were represented, with athletes taking part in Athletics, Climbing, Judo, Swimming, Badminton, Fencing and Archery over the three days.

Among the competitors was 51Âþ»­ Sports Scholar James Draper, who defended his BUCS Nationals title with some spectacular judo. The MSc Intelligent Systems and Robotics student secured the gold medal in the U66kg category on Saturday for the second year running.  

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The judoka, who places seventh in the UK in his category and fights for GB Judo, did not hang around in his route to the final - with his first three fights all lasting under a minute each.

In his first fight against Jake Wilson from Liverpool John Moores, James secured the win within the first 30 seconds.

His next two fights were a confident display of James’s skilful judo, and featured a well-executed arm lock and beautiful throw for ippon (ten points), bringing him up against Peter Berrett from Edinburgh in the final. 

The fight lasted an epic full four minutes, but the 51Âþ»­ Judoka managed to throw the Edinburgh student for waza-ari and secure the gold.

Speaking about his experience of combining study and sport at 51Âþ»­, James said:

“As a sports scholar the university funds me massively and really supports me with my training. I wouldn’t be able to do half the amount of training without the help of the university – and it feels really good to win something under their name, so it’s been a really great day here for me.”

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Another fantastic performance for #Team51Âþ»­ was from Joshua Grob who won a Bronze medal in the 400m Freestyle Para-Swim with a time of 5:25:85. Joshua also came 4^th and 6^th place in the Para-Swimming categories of the 50m and 100m Freestyle.

Joshua, who has been swimming competitively since the age of nine, has previously represented Switzerland in international competitions. He won the silver medal in the Men’s 50m Freestyle and bronze in the Men’s 400m freestyle at the 2018 World Para Swimming Allianz European Championships in Dublin.

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Other notable performances included Adam Spilsbury, who made it to the Semi-Finals of the 800m Sprint, and Harry Palmer who made it to the last 64 in the Fencing. 

The overall representation from 51Âþ»­ was fantastic, with extremely impressive dedication that all the competitors have demonstrated in their training and commitment to their sport and teams.