Loughborough celebrated one of their best BCUS performances ever, taking home an amazing 34 medals, including Alex’s, and coming away the overall champion, with the University of Birmingham securing second place.

A hugely successful and committed athlete here at RGS, and representing Team GB in the U20 category on many occasions, last year Alex celebrated winning his individual 400m event and the 4x400m relay in Mannheim, Germany, representing Great Britain.  

The British Universities and Colleges Sport (BCUS) is the governing body for higher education sport in the United Kingdom and is responsible for organising 54 inter-university sports in the UK and representative teams for the World University Championships and the World University Games. Over 165 universities and colleges in the UK are a part of the BCUS, with 6,000 teams competing across 850 leagues. Anne, Princess Royal is patron of BUCS.

At RGS, Alex studied A levels in Business, Politics and PE and he is now at Loughborough University studying Sport Management.  Speaking about his RGS days and the impact School had on his Athletics, Alex tells us, "RGS was where I first started to properly garner an interest in athletics. As I went through the years, the school helped retain my interest in the sport as I went to school athletics competitions up until Covid, even though I often would lose. Then once I reached sixth form and had to spend a lot of my time rehabbing from a hamstring tear, the school helped out by giving me access to the gym to continue with my rehab process, as well as receiving help and advice from teachers like Mr Biddle and Mrs Swingler. This helped me recover effectively and ultimately meant I was healthy to start my successful outdoor campaign."

At the BCUS, this year held in Sheffield, Alex secured his with a time of 48.23. He tells us how he feels about his brilliant win and the overall success of Loughborough, saying "I was incredibly happy to win BUCS in my first outing. It’s not often first years win, so I was proud of what I had achieved. Despite being a messy race with people pushing and tripping over, I’m pleased I managed to stay out of any issues, and executed the race well. This was my first ever time running a 400m indoors and I wasn’t going to run until about 4 days before the competition, so my preparation wasn’t A typical to a normal competition, but I knew if I went out and ran like I had been in training, I would be in with a very strong chance of winning. It was great to pair my win with Loughborough’s overall success in the Competition as we went on to win by nearly 3 times a many points as second place, and my old training hub - Birmingham University, as well sweeping the 400m for both genders as my teammate Emily also won the women’s 400m in a BUCS record. I’m going to use the momentum gained from this win as I go into a training period, before opening up my outdoor campaign, where I hope to qualify for the 400m at the World u20 athletics championships in Peru."

Well done Alex from all of us at RGS – we are very proud!