Boxing gold and cycling silver for all-rounder Jess (From Ludlow Advertiser)

Boxing gold and cycling silver for all-rounder Jess

8:30am Tuesday 13th April 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

A CHURCH Stretton boxer has won gold at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) boxing championships, in Sheffield.

Jessica Stone, from the University of Worcester, took Gold in the women's contest.

Nineteen-year-old Stone, a first year Sports and Exercise Science student, only started boxing six months ago.

She boxed in the 64kgs category for boxers with less than five fights.

“I joined the University boxing club just as a way to get fit,” she said. “I never imagined that I would compete, let alone win gold in my first competition.”

To demonstrate her sporting versatility, Stone has also scooped a silver medal in the BUCS downhill mountain biking championships.

And Stone was just milliseconds away from repeating her gold-medal triumph in the boxing competition.

She said: “I was only 0.8seconds off the winner Emily Horridge, who is also an Elite World Cup Rider so we were battling it out for first place.”

Stone was awarded a £600 scholarship by the University of Worcester’s Scholarship Panel, for competing in downhill mountain biking competitions at an international level.

She will be competing in the Downhill World Cup this May plus a number of other national and regional races this season, including the National Downhill Championships in July and also took part in a regional race in the Pearce Cycle Series in Bringewood, Ludlow.

She said: “I am feeling really confident and focused; I’ve been training hard so this should be a fun season.”

When she graduates from university, Stone plans to make a career out of downhill mountain biking.

She said: “I would like to get as far as I can in the sport.”

The University of Worcester’s Scholarship Panel awards grants of up to £1,000 towards voluntary work or activities, to pursue a particular interest, i.e. music or arts, or towards course-related activities.

For more information on Jess Stone, visit http://www.jessstone.com/

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)