Congratulations to Leigh Wetheridge who has been selected as the University of Kent sports scholar of the year for 2015 – 2016. Leigh graduated with a 2:1 in Law and has shown commendable commitment to powerlifting and the sports scholarship programme. The University of Kent aims to deliver sporting excellence and is proud to offer scholarships to students with outstanding sporting ability at both Canterbury and Medway campuses.
Ben Roberts, Kent Sport Health and Fitness Instructor said, “Working with Leigh has been a real privilege; she is a dedicated and highly motivated athlete and a fantastic role model for women’s strength sports. Powerlifting is not an easy sport and requires many long and often painful hours in the gym to achieve success and especially when you have to balance training with working and studying. Even though this was only her first year of international level competition, she approached it with the same happy dedication I saw in her training sessions and it has been justly rewarded with a European Championship win, a World Championship Silver and a hatful of British records. She has been a credit to the scholarship scheme and I am sure she will continue to break British records and win more major titles in the future if she continues at her current rate of progress.
Leigh’s competition personal bests are 180kg squat, 97.5kg bench and 200kg deadlift. Leigh commented, “ I would encourage all students to try a new sport or continue with sports they love as there is more to people than the final grade they achieve. I would encourage any established athlete to apply to the scholarship scheme as it has proved to be such an incredible scheme in which I had continued support and guidance from an amazing team and I have developed significantly as an athlete. Being on the scheme will be one of my most memorable parts of university and to have won scholar of the year is one of my proudest achievements. “
Mel Clewlow, Assistant Director at the University, said: ‘Our sports scholars are prime examples of how commitment, dedication and hard work can help achieve fantastic results. By applying herself to the scheme and her training, Leigh has achieved international success and we are proud to have played a part in her sporting career.’
We caught up with Leigh in the Kent Sport fitness suite and she told us about her year – see the video on the Kent Sport YouTube channel. To stay up to date with Kent Sport news, Like UniKentSports on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and visit the Kent Sport events calendar to see what’s on.