UEL Sports Awards 2022 winners

Published

27 May 2022

The University of East London celebrated the triumphant return of its annual Sports Awards following a two-year break due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over 250 guests attended the event held in SportsDock, at the University's Docklands campus on 26 May 2022.

James Kilden, director of sport & physical activity at UEL, kicked off the awards by welcoming students, staff and guests. "Without your hard work, dedication and passion, none of our programmes would run like they do," he told the audience.

Mr Kilden ran through the highlights and achievements from an action-packed year, including:

Launching the East London Phoenix franchise, London's only professional parasport team and part of the first-ever women's wheelchair basketball premier league globally;
UEL retaining the Challenge Cup against Anglia Ruskin University;
Men's football team winning promotion to the BUCS premier league;
Women's volleyball team winning the league with an unbeaten record.

Professor Ian Pickup, pro vice-chancellor (education & experience) and chief operating officer, followed up with an inspirational speech looking at the past ten years of sport at UEL and how events like London 2012 helped transform the facilities and increase the opportunities available to students.

On display in SportsDock were iconic photos, sports equipment, and memorabilia from the British Olympic Association archive collection held by the University of East London Archives team at Docklands.

Many of the students in attendance will be hoping to build their own sporting legacy, with winners including London Lions stars and UEL students Paige Robinson and Holly Winterburn in the 'International Excellence' category.

The crowd was loud and supportive throughout the ceremony, with the biggest cheer of the night saved for the 'Club of the Year award', which went to netball.

In total 20 awards were given out, and the celebrations went long into the night as the sports community at UEL enjoyed getting together for one of the final big events of the 2021/2022 academic year.

Although with many of the high performance sport scholars hopeful of competing at European and World Championships across the summer and Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, there are hopefully many more reasons to celebrate on the horizon.

Accordion