Celebration of University sporting achievements

Judo swept the board at the University of Wolverhampton’s annual sports awards.

The 2017 awards, organised by the Institute of Sport, celebrates the achievements of the University’s sporting body and those teams and individuals that compete in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) championships

Held at Molineux the awards were hosted by Wolverhampton cycling legend Hugh Porter MBE, and also featured keynote speakers - sports broadcaster Jacqui Oatley MBE and director of Wasps Netball Tamsin Greenway.

Judo were the big winners on the night taking five of the awards on offer including team of the year, coach of the year and sportsman and sportswoman of the year, as well as the special director’s award.

It follows the team’s huge success at the BUCS Judo Championships in February where they won both the men’s and women’s team competitions – the first University team to do this for more than 10 years. Alongside this they also won two individual golds and two individual silver medals

Captain of the year went to Nicola Jones who led the Women’s Football team to runners up spot in the BUCS 1A league and are the University’s highest tier performing team.

There were also awards for Jenny Hinton, who won Volunteer of the Year, having volunteered more than 500 hours to coach at schools, Chasetown under 16s, Starlands St Anne’s FC and Burton Albion Ladies.

And Bako Abdulrahman was the Social Sport Activator of the Year for helping encourage students to take up sport on a social level while at University.