Two Olympic athletes feature on a four-strong shortlist for the 2014 University of Bath Sports Personality of the Year Award.
This year’s winner will be announced at the Blues Awards ceremony, which recognises the sporting achievements of University of Bath students and takes place at the Assembly Rooms on Wednesday 7th May.
The event is organised by the University of Bath Students’ Union Sport and will also see awards presented for Club of the Year, BUCS Team of the Year and for Excellence in Coaching.
All members of Students’ Union Sport – more than 4500 students – can vote for one of the four Sports Personality of the Year candidates.
The shortlisted athletes are:
Chris Hotchen – A badminton player who represented British Universities in 2009 and 2010, winning a bronze medal at the European University Championships in 2009. He has captained the University men’s firsts from 2010 to 2014 and captained the club from 2011 to 2014. He is studying for a PhD Chemistry.
Dominic Parsons – A skeleton slider, who has a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University and has just started work on a PhD, finished 10th on his Olympic debut at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.
Andrew Willis – A Chemical Engineering student who reached the 200m breaststroke final at the London 2012 Olympics and just missed out on the medals at the 2013 World Championships, finishing fourth.
Fran Wilson – A Sports Performance student who has captained the University’s women’s football team for two seasons and also featured in England Women’s Academy cricket team.
The winner of the BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) Team of the Year will also be announced on the night.
The shortlisted teams are the women’s football firsts, the women’s netball firsts, the men’s lacrosse firsts and the men’s tennis firsts.
Blues, Half Blues, Colours and Ribbons will also be presented to students who have made a significant contribution to University sport.
The University will take the opportunity to pay tribute to athletes who competed at the Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Sixteen athletes with University of Bath links, including Paralympic gold medal winning skier Kelly Gallagher, will be presented with Honorary Blues to mark their achievements.
Tom Janicot, Students’ Union Sport Officer, said: “We are all looking forward to a great evening to recognise yet another fantastic year for student sport in terms of performance, participation and impact on the community.”
