News

Durham regains a Top 5 position in UK sports table

(28 July 2005)

Durham University’s student sportsmen and sportswomen have equalled their best performance in the overall UK universities championships by again clinching a top 5 place.

The University came fifth for overall achievement across all sports in the BUSA (British Universities Sports Association) Championship – repeating their best-ever position in 2002-03.

It means Durham climbed back from 8th in 2004 to finish ahead of other traditionally strong sporting competitors like Oxford, Cambridge and Nottingham and nudging close to the more sports-specialist institutions in Loughborough, Bath, Birmingham and Cardiff.

Vice-Chancellor Sir Kenneth Calman said: “All the athletes, the coaches, grounds-staff, administrators and others who work for sport in the University, have done a marvellous job. Congratulations all round. This is an achievement not only for the University but the whole North-East - and I applaud Northumbria’s entry into the top 10 too.”

The final BUSA table for 2004-05 was:

Loughborough 3140

Bath 1658

Birmingham 1428

UWIC 993

Durham 976

Cambridge 945

Nottingham 918

Oxford 872

Edinburgh 796

Northumbria 755

See also: www.busa.org.uk/

Durham’s performance was boosted by winning the BUSA Rowing title this year for the second time in a row. In cricket Durham was the only University to get all four of its BUSA teams (Men’s 1st, 2nd and 3rd XIs and Women’s) into the championship semi-finals, and three reached the finals. In individual sports, William Shucksmith, an Economics student at the College of St Hild & St Bede, won the BUSA National Individual Golf title in June.

Media contact: Dr Peter Warburton, Director of Sport Tel: 0191 334 2174