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ISSUE 6 TUESDAY 14 OCT 2013ewsn

BIG HEAD-ING

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Team UTS Climb &

Conquer at AUG’s

Individual Medals at AUG’s

AUG’s Green & Gold Merits

Competition & the Spirit of It!

UTS Survival of the Fittest

Tigers Tear It Up!

Hockey Heros

Do It. Enjoy It. Excel At It.

Rolling out our Sporting Diversity

Play to Beat

TEAM UTS CLIMB & CONQUER AT AUG’STHERE IS NO STOPPING UTS SPORT AND THEIR DEDICATED TEAM OF ATHLETES WHO AT EACH ANNUAL AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY GAMES CONTINUE TO TRAIN HARDER, PLAY HARDER, WIN MORE AND STRIVE TO BE ONE OF THE BEST SPORTING UNI’S IN AUSTRALIA.

From 29 Sep - 5th Oct 2013 Australia’s famous Gold Coast came to life with over 8000 University students from all over Australia congregating for the annual games. Months of preparation and training by 400 UTS athletes, including 80 Elite Athlete Scholars made many UTS teams and athletes a target on rival university’s hit lists. But the sporting strength of UTS prevailed through the round games and as the competition heated up, so too did team spirit as semi finals and finals drew closer. There was no doubt as teams progressed through the competition they were definitely feeling the pressure and by Day 5 of the Australian University Games, Team UTS was in an extremely strong position.

From the 11 UTS teams in Division 1 gold medal matches Softball, Kendo, Men’s Touch, Rugby Union, Mixed Netball, Mixed Handball, Women’s Futsal had the gold firmly wrapped around their necks at full time. After nail biting matches, Women’s Touch, Men’s Volleyball and Women’s Volleyball were adorned with silver and our bronze medalists were Men’s Water Polo. Division 2 medal matches saw Women’s Netball win gold, Men’s Football win silver and Men’s Basketball take home bronze.

These results, along with countless individual medals brought a haul of trophies and pennants back to UTS and an overall 4th place, out of 44 Universities. This is the best result yet for UTS, beating last year’s (best ever) 6th placing. UTS was just one gold medal off knocking Sydney Uni from their third placing overall (they have held a top 3 placing for the last 20 years).

Credit to the entire UTS team of 400 students across 28 different sports. You have done us proud!

ALL UTS AUG’S PHOTOS BY CHRIS LEW

Photo by Chris Lew

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SwimmingJAMES STACEY Gold in the 50m and 100m breaststroke

JESSIE QUINN Silver in the 100m backstroke and 200m Individual Medley, Bronze in the 200m backstroke

AthleticsDYLAN DUDLEY Gold in the 3000m Steeplechase, Silver in the 1500m, Bronze in the 5000m

STEVEN WASHBURN Gold in the 5000m Walk

MADDIE POWELL Silver in the 400m Hurdles

SAMUAL HABER Bronze in the 400m Hurdles

RELAYS Women’s 4 x 400m Relay - Silver

Women’s 1600 Medley Relay – Silver

Men’s 1600m Medlay Relay – Bronze

Men’s 4 x 400m Relay - Bronze

Fencing RITA TSIAMOULIS Gold in the individual novice Foil

JADE TAINTURIER Bronze in the individual novie Foil

Table TennisANNIE LI Gold in Women Singles

INDIVIDUAL MEDALS

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Dylan Dudly pushing his limits at Survival of the Fittest

COMPETITION AND THE SPIRIT OF IT!FOR MANY OF US WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE CAPABLE OF UNTIL WE ARE TESTED, UNTIL WE ARE PUSHED FURTHER THAN WE HAVE EVER HAD THE BRAVERY TO GO.

Yesterday I was a judge in a “Survival of the Fittest” event that tested athletes in a range of physical skills; strength, endurance, speed, cardio vascular fitness and coordination.

The one aspect of every competition we take part in throughout our lives that has the ability to affect our development as athletes is competition. I for one love the idea of competition; I love the idea of testing my limits against others and in doing so pushing myself harder than I ever would if I were on my own.

Competition becomes an issue when all people are focussed on is the idea of winning. Winning becomes the be all and end all, the smallest mistake leads to utter frustration and disappointment. This is not the spirit of competition. Competition should help you develop mentally and physically. Competitions shows you your weaknesses and allows you to go away and further develop those skills, competition creates mental toughness, the ability to push through even when your legs are burning, to dig deep down and find that little bit more just so you can cross the line.

When I watch the Olympic Games, yes I love to see those that can break the sound barrier in a 100m sprint but I also love to see those that have fallen or hurt themselves, get up and crawl towards the finish line. Nothing is going to stop them from crossing that line regardless of placing.

“The Survival of the Fittest competition” help at the Multi Purpose Sports Hall was no different. We had sports people from many different back grounds including long distance runners, kick boxers, water polo players and gym goers.

During the final event one of the long distance runners had to perform 20 lunges whilst holding a 20kg plate overhead. He was positive he could not lift the weight above his head. He was sure he couldn’t do the movement and was growing more and more frustrated as his placing in the competition slipped away. The judges, finished teams, crowd and even the DJ rallied behind him to help him find it within himself to dig deep down and find a spark he never knew he had.

He threw the weight above head and grinded through rep after rep, no longer focussed on his position in the competition but rather the challenge of finishing the event. This can be seen as the biggest win of the day and what the spirit of competition is all about, people coming together to help others in their physical development.

We are all here for the same reason, to develop, to grow and to evolve. This can only be done through adaptation under pressure. Changing our mental state to meet a challenge, building on our weaknesses until they become strengths and encouraging each until the end.

WRITTEN BY BEN LY

Lachlan Kirwan – Basketball

Samantha Spackman – Football

Beth Sweeny – Futsal

Yolanda Thomas – Hockey

Duy Pham – Kendo

Kayle Leatham –Netball

Victoria Lowe –Netball

Jack Dempsey – Rugby Union

Scott Ferris – Rugby Union

Thomas Hill – Rugby Union

Jack Maguire – Rugby Union

Thomas Matthews – Rugby Union

Brandon Quinn – Rugby Union

Ange Temple – Softball

Elizabeth Cockburn – Softball

Kate Reed – Softball

Lisa Carlton – Softball

James Stacey – Swimming

Annie Li – Table Tennis

Nathaniel Maraga – Tennis

Vitaly Faynerman – Tennis

Priscilla Soenario – Tennis

Corey Voura – Touch Football

Georgia Clifton – Touch Football

Gabriel Glassack – Touch Football

Daniel Donaldson – T20 Cricket

Chris Green – T20 Cricket

Sam Morrison – Volleyball

Ben Lalic – Volleyball

Nicoline Anderson – Volleyball

Alexandra Devlin – Volleyball

Natalia Krivonogova – Volleyball

Caitlin Cockburn – Volleyball

Sam Cocokios – Water Polo

Chris Dyson – Water Polo

Nick Taylor – Water Polo

Louise Hoban – Water Polo

GREEN & GOLD MERIT UTS HAD 37 STUDENTS NAMED IN GREEN AND GOLD MERIT SQUADS, A ‘BEST OF THE BEST’ LIST FOR EACH SPORT.

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UTS SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!Congratulations to UTS Kickboxing for taking out the Extreme Fitness Competition and being crowned UTS Fittest Athletes! FB’s came in a close second place and DäSchDe in third place.

MARATHON MADNESS IN KONAOur very own EAP Scholar Mike Wood completed the gruelling Hawaiian Ironman in Kona, on Sunday 13 October. This race shows the commitment, courage and dedication of all it’s participants and as the man himself said “I never knew a race could be so hard”.

Huge congratulations to Mike who completed the Kona 2013 Ironman World Championship in 608th place, in 09:59:25.

HOCKEY HEROSMEET OUR GRAND FINAL WINNERS!!!

What a season for the UTS Women’s 1st grade hockey team. Minor premiership, Major premiership and promotion into Metro 1 (Highest level Women’s league in Sydney) Congratulations ladies!

DO IT. ENJOY IT. EXCEL AT IT!ONE OF OUR VERY OWN UTS FITNESS CENTRE TRAINERS HIT HOMEBUSH FOR HER VERY FIRST WEIGHTLIFTING COMPETITION AT THE NSW STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Dian weighed in at 52.2kg placing her among the lightest in her weight category and senior division. In Olympic weight lifting competition individuals compete in 2 lifting techniques, the Snatch; lifting the bar from the floor to overhead in a single movement and the clean and jerk; lifting the bar to the shoulders then to overhead in 2 movements. Competitors are allowed to choose their starting weight for each movement and have three attempts at the snatch and three attempts at the clean and jerk to gain a total of the heaviest weight lifted in each movement. Dian lifted 37kg in her snatch category having missed her first lift due to nerves and finished with an impressive 50kg lift in the clean and jerk. This gave Dian a total of 87kg lifted and a bronze medal in her first ever competition.

On top of the impressive power and strength demonstrated on the day I think what most stood out to me was the level of determination, commitment and honest enjoyment Dian displayed on the day. As Dian stood on the 4m by 4m platform under the spotlight in front of the crowd, some might think it to be the loneliest place to be, but Dian wasn’t concerned with how much she was lifting or how she ranked amongst the other competitors, she was just ecstatic to be there doing what she loves in front of her family and friends.

There’s a lot to be said about competitive nature and the drive to win or the drive to be the best you can be, but when does this competitiveness contradict why you got involved in the sport in the first place? The idea of winning isn’t why a lot of us try new things, excelling is simply an added bonus. We decide to try new sports and exercises to socialise with friends and family, learn a new skill and feel a part of something exciting and new.

As we get older we feel the need to submit to our ego, we feel the need to always succeed and to never fail. With this need to never fail we let in a fear of failing and so just stop trying all together. If we give in so quickly to the idea that we might fail, how do ever achieve anything?

The idea of enjoying what you are doing and enjoying the company of the people you do it with plays a big part in being a better version of the every day you. If we give into the notion that we might not succeed or we might not win, then we can never be better. By shielding ourselves from new experiences and new levels of improvement we become our own worst enemy.

After seeing Dian’s performance last weekend it has inspired me to really step back and look at what I enjoy most about the exercises I perform. For a time there exercise became a chore. I realised what I enjoyed most about exercise is personal gains and so rather than work on trying to lift as much as everybody else I have decided to work on areas I am not so good at.

I have begun taking part in a Super Circuit class once a week run by a good friend of mine and UTS Instructor and exercise specialist Carly Halliday, I spend one day a week working specifically on Olympic lifting, I play flag gridiron on weekends and I play flag football on weeknights. By opening up my world of exercise I have begun appreciating the notion of remaining healthy and active as well as building a social environment around what I use to believe was a chore.

So, no matter what you are doing, enjoy it. Don’t worry about what anybody else thinks, do what you do because YOU want to because at the end of the day when it comes to health and wellbeing YOU are the most important person and YOU can be selfish. Who knows, you might just surprise yourself with what you are capable of when you give yourself a chance. Congratulations Dian on your bronze medal in your first ever comp!!!

WRITTEN BY BEN LY

UTS Women’s Hockey Team

UTS Kickboxing

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THE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN UTS SPORT AND THE UTS EQUITY AND DIVERSITY UNIT TO BRING A FUN WEEKLY WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL COMPETITION TO THE UTS COMMUNITY IS PROVING A HUGE SUCCESS.

The opportunity for staff and students to get a taste for this fast-paced exciting game is a result of the University’s commitment to celebrating diversity. It’s inclusive approach has made UTS the first University in Australia to invest in 10 sports wheelchairs to enable both disabled and able-bodied students and staff to try out what wheelchair sports have to offer!

Obviously the success on the court was a little shaky at the start. Picking up speed was the easy part, but not knowing how to brake or turn caught a few people of guard. This was quickly combatted though and participants would be ready to roll after a brilliant skills session run by Ferry Hewson, coach of the Sydney Uni Wheel Kings.

The competiton is very close, the biceps and triceps have doubled in size and this ball game is one hell of a work out both phsically and mentally. But what it is most of all, is a whole lot of fun!

This competition is a fantastic illustration of the diversity UTS implements. Come down and check out the games on a Wednesday lunch time in the MPSH.

IF YOU WANT TO BEAT THEM YOU NEED TO PLAY THEM... WELL THAT’S JUST ONE OF THE REASONS UTS SPORT INTERN STEPH WHITE, ALONG SIDE UTS SPORTS CLUB MANAGER FUDGE ATSHAN DEVELOPED THE 2013 INTERVARSITY NETBALL COMPETITION.

We are all well aware that there is tonnes of sporting talent exists within the university sector, it is just a matter of uncovering it through competitions like these. They aim to provide an opportunity for students to represent their institution in a high

So as a part of Steph’s internship, turning this idea in to reality was both a great professional experience for her, but more importantly a fantastic student experience for the athletes in developing a strong sense of university pride. The NSW Intervarsity Netball Championships saw talented athletes from UTS, MQU and UNSW take to the court to compete in a 3 week round robin, providing great training for all teams in the lead up to AUG’s.

The final round was held out at Macquarie University and as in the first two rounds the UTS girls put on a flawless display, making the opposition work hard for each and every point. The final score: UTS 77 – MQU 27. UTS’s performance over the final three weeks has been absolutely phenomenal with the girls winning 4/4 rounds and finishing miles ahead of the competition with a 177 goal difference. The competition itself was a great success and we hope that it will continue to grow and prosper in the years to come.

ROLLING OUT OUR SPORTING DIVERSITY

CRICKET

Shaquille O’Wheels

UTS Netball

Ferry Hewson