Lucy named Sports Personality of the Year
15th May 2011Triathlete and cross-country runner Lucy Ferguson was named the University of Bath’s Sports Personality of the Year for 2011 at the annual Blues Awards, one of the highlights of the student sporting year.
Lucy, who is in the fourth year of a Sports Engineering degree at the University of Bath, topped a poll of Students’ Union Sports Association members to collect the award.
Paralympic athlete Katrina Hart, swimmer Michael Jamieson, rugby player Izzy Noel-Smith and netballer Sam Perry also featured on the shortlist.
Unfortunately Lucy couldn’t be at the awards ceremony at the Assembly Rooms as she was at an overseas training camp. But she said she was surprised and proud to win the award.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” she said. “I was delighted to be nominated in the first place and seeing myself among other such elite athletes with such outstanding results, I considered myself pretty outclassed.
“I have put as much as I could into the cross-country and triathlon clubs this year trying to encourage novices to race and I want to thank my clubs and my
department, Mechanical Engineering, for their support in voting.”
A former modern pentathlete, Lucy finished third in the 2009 World Biathle Championships, which combines swimming and running, and fourth at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) triathlon championships earlier this month. She helped organise the 2010/1 Bath Run Series of races.
University of Bath graduate, former TeamBath netballer and current head coach Jess Garland, was winner of the Ivor Powell Award for Coaching Excellence. She became the first winner of the award to receive the new bronze statute of Ivor.
Hockey player George Farrant and netballer Rosie Allison won the Santander Sportsman of the Year and Santander Sportswoman of the Year awards, while the University of Bath Rowing Club was named Club of the Year and the women’s badminton team collected the BUCS team of the year title.
There were also honorary Blues for Paul Blake and Katrina Hart, two University of Bath-based athletes who both won gold medals at this year’s Paralympic World Athletics Championships
Stephen Baddeley, Director of Sport at the University of Bath, said: “I’d like to congratulate everyone who received Awards, Full Blues, Half Blues and Colours at this year’s Blues Awards ceremony and thank them for the contribution they have made to sport at the University.
“The range of award recipients again this year is a reflection of the diversity of sporting activity at the University of Bath.”
The Blues Awards are an annual celebration of the achievements of the University of Bath’s sportsmen and women. This year’s awards, held at the Assembly Rooms, were the 38th Blues Awards. Olympic gold medal-winning speaker Jason Gardener was guest speaker.