Last weekend, two students from St Hugh’s College, Rachel Wheatley (2nd year DPhil) and James Fowler (1st year Law), represented Oxford University at the Judo British Universities Championships (BUCS).
Oxford University had four athletes reach the BUCS nationals finals. This was an outstanding result for the university, second only to Bath with five athletes- most of whom were sports performance students training full-time. Rachel and James were among these finalists, with Rachel winning the Silver in the BUCS Nationals Women under- 63kg category, and James winning the Silver in the BUCS Nationals Men under-60kg category (losing out to fellow Oxford team-mate, Peter Miles, 2015 British National Champion).
Finalists are selected to compete in the European University Games held in Croatia this June, where they will be fighting against competitors from 45 countries across Europe. This will be a team of 28 Judoka from Britain (the 14 male finalists, and 14 female finalists).
Congratulations to both James and Rachel on this tremendous accomplishment and all the best in the coming months with both training and competing!
