World Games test for Leeds Met athletes

by Joseph Fitzpatrick

Like a child who has had too much sugar Leeds Metropolitan's sporting excellence refuses to be ignored and incessantly demands attention, thoroughly deserved attention at that. The latest demand comes in the form of this summer's World Student Games, the world's third largest sporting event, to be held in Sheznhan, China.

The university has student representation in no less than four of the 15 sports Great Britain are competing in, and several coaches have also been selected to make the trip to China.

Leeds Met students make up three of the four divers in the GB team. Sarah Barrow, who came fourth in last year's Commonwealth Games, has been selected for the Platform and Synchro diving team, alongside fellow Met student Jenny Cowen. Cowen won bronze and silver medals in the 2009 Australian Youth Games, and was Aisling Loftus' diving double in the recent BBC drama Dive. In the men's diving Joe Meszaros will be competing alongside University of Maryland's Jack Clewlow.

Gymnastics is another sport where Leeds Metropolitan has near domination of the Great Britain team with four of the seven competitors hailing from our university. Students Ashley Watson, Matt Firth, Becky Hall, and Sam Fern are joined by Leeds Met coach Chris Low, who has been selected as GB's gymnastic head coach.

Leeds Met's recent stranglehold on BUCS badminton is reflected in the GB team selections where Sarah Milne and Andrew Wright will compete under the familiar guidance of Leeds Metropolitan High-Performance Badminton Coach James Vincent, who travels to China as Team Manager. Mark Middleton, Stephanie Munn-Tzin Bong, and Fontaine Chapman have been named as reserves.

Four members of the Leeds Metropolitan women's football team that has lost the BUCS Final on penalties two years running will also be jetting out to Sheznhan. Ex- English Universities players Sarah Danby, Rachel Lee, Natalie Haigh, and Hayley Sharpe will all be aiming for gold in August.

In tennis, Leeds Met's no.1, Kyle Brassington, has been named as a reserve in a team that features only one other student studying in England, with the majority of players based in America.

Leeds Metropolitan Sport Development Manager, Ian Smyth, believes that the students travelling to China have a great chance of making next year's GB Olympic team: "It is fantastic that we have had so many students in such a wide variety of sports selected for the World University Games," he said. "This, added to the fact we have students competing at European and World level in Athletics, Badminton and Triathlon, is testimony to the hard work, dedication and commitment of both the athletes, but also the coaching staff and support teams.
"This is a fantastic area of excellence that the university can be justifiably proud of, and we can all look forward to many of these students representing team GB at London 2012."