2023 BUCS Round Up

Another successful year for University of Edinburgh students across the BUCS leagues and events resulting in a 5th place finish in the BUCS League Table.

The 2022/23 season has seen another year of success from University of Edinburgh students across 116 teams in BUCS leagues and over 900 individual entries in BUCS Event Championships so far.

Currently the University of Edinburgh sit in 5^th place in the overall BUCS points table and are on target to surpass the overall points total from the previous season in 2021/22.

With more than 1100 fixtures completed it has been an incredibly rewarding year so far with 85 teams achieving more BUCS points than they did last year. An astounding 14 teams have finished 1^st in their respective leagues with many of them gaining promotion for next season.

This year saw the 10^th anniversary of BUCS Nationals, held in Sheffield, a strong cohort of over 70 University of Edinburgh athletes competed across 4 sports; Indoor Athletics, Badminton, Swimming and Climbing. The weekend displayed some brilliant performances across the board resulting in 15 medals across three sports. Notably, the swimming programme showcased their talent in the pool, collecting 12 medals and a handful of top four finishes all contributing to the BUCS points secured over the weekend. Kara Hanlon swam an incredible 1.06.75 in the 100m Breaststroke, setting a new Scottish Record. Climbing contributed 2 medals securing silver in the Women’s Team and bronze in the Men’s Team. The final medal came from the athletics track with a great performance from Alyson Bell, winning bronze in the 60m final.

A highlight of every year is BUCS Big Wednesday, which consists of the finals of all National Trophy, Vase and Championship Knockout Competitions. An exceptional 6 teams qualified for finals day in Nottingham. Men’s Hockey 1XI, Women’s Hockey 2XI, Women’s Fencing 1’s and 2’s and Men’s Football 1s all put in brilliant performances across the day with highlights including Mandy Yang's incredible fencing performance resulting in her being awarded Player of the Match. The Men's National Vase Hockey final kept everyone on the edge of their seats in an end to end battle which saw Edinburgh come back from a 2-0 disadvantage finishing with a 2-2 draw. A 4-2 win from some nerve-racking penalty flicks saw the 1XI crowned BUCS Vase Champions. The Men's Water Polo National Championship match saw another nail-biting final against Durham as the game ended with a 9-9 draw secured by an equalising goal from Edinburgh 1s in the last 15 seconds, leading to sudden death penalties and Edinburgh taking home a silver medal. BUCS Big Wednesday finished with the Fencing Women’s 1s retaining their title in the Championship final against Nottingham 1s with an overall result of 135-124, marking the team’s 5^th consecutive title win at BBW which is an unbelievable achievement.

There have been some clubs which have shown their strong capabilities this year. The Orienteering Club had another great year at BUCS Championships coming away with 4 individual medals (1 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze), 4 relay medals (2 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze) and the overall Men’s and Women’s Team golds. This incredible performance put them 81 point clear at the top of the BUCS Orienteering table.

The Jiu Jitsu Club have had a year of great achievements and shown massive improvement from last year, finishing top of their BUCS table after an extremely successful BUCS Championships. Megan Stamp secured gold in the Women’s Individual, the Men’s team gained silver in the overall Men’s team category and the Women claimed bronze in the Women’s overall team category.

Not only did the Fencing Club perform in the League and Knockout Championships, they also secured 4 medals at the Individuals Championships with Isaac Kerr (Epee) and Mandy Yang (Foil) winning gold and Rory McLellan (Foil) and Giulia Gasparin (Sabre) winning bronze.

The Rowing club have secured 17 Championship medals and a number of 4^th place finishes across Indoor Rowing Championships, BUCS Head and BUCS Regatta where the Beginner programme showed off their talent.

Our Ladies Rugby 1st Team are the team to secure the most BUCS points this season with 133 points. Some great team performances resulted in them finishing 2nd in the Premier National league, 2nd at the Rugby 7’s Championships and reaching the semi-final in National Championships knockout.

With the Cricket season currently ongoing and a number of Event Championships including Beach Volleyball, Triathlon and Equestrian to look forward to before the end of the 2022/23 BUCS season. We wish everyone still competing good luck.