Hi All,
Since the main hockey season finished I’ve been at a little bit of a loose end until May waiting for the summer league to begin. I decided to take up a new sport, Ultimate Frisbee and got to play one mixed tournament for a team called Light and Dark.

The way frisbee competitions work is that you are ranked to begin with and your aim is to improve your ranking. Unless you’re in the top 8 you can’t win. Light and Dark were ranked 20th and finished the tournament in 17th so we did quite well. I really enjoyed being more part of the playing compared to playing in goals all the time.

Summer league hockey itself has begun, I am playing for an Oxford Hawks team and we’ve won one and lost one while I’ve played. I’ve also played one mixed match for hawks and had a great time! I hadn’t played so well all season until I played men who would push me to be better! We played and lost 3-0 to the Oxford Uni team but I was happy because of my performance.

Last Thursday I also played in a Rush Hockey tournment with a team of my fellow Christians in Sport Academy team mates and we actually won. Rush Hockey is to introduce people to hockey so we had 3/7 hockey players in our team and our non hockey players were excellent! I think I’ve converted some to take up hockey again at uni! As captain me and the team picked up gold medals and water bottles! See our team above!

for now
J

Just to post another picture of the relay!

Hi All,

I’ve just had the most amazing experience in my life! Today I ran my leg of the Olympic Torch Relay through Antrim! Having been at the Youth Olympics in Singapore I know exactly what the Torch actually means, it is the beginning of the Games, the show doesn’t start without it and it plays an epic part of the Opening Ceremony!

I got the honour of carrying it safely along my route, a small but amazing link in the chain.

I am one of only 8000 Torchbearers in the UK! I can’t stress enough how much of a privilege it was, to meet other inspirational who have been nominated like me and were thought worthy enough to carry it. Even the rain couldn’t put a dampener on my day!

Thank you Asda for your continued support and Coca Cola for choosing me as a Future Flame to carry the Torch as part of London 2012!

J

So recently I’ve been in touch with my future place of study, Loughborough University. Living in Oxford I managed to borrow a car on two occasions to get up and play and train with the girls there already. I guess I’m like a pre-fresher.

Anyway I had been in touch with the Coach Jerome and he asked me to attend some sessions when they were trying out some new tactics for the season ahead in their bid for promotion to the Premier League. The way we worked it was the were two teams each week playing as different countries, so the first week I was in team Australia, the second week, the Germans.

For me the first week was just ok, I didn’t have lots to do so didn’t feel I had really proved myself. The second week however proved much better! I had played well and really got into it. It made me really love hockey again after not playing seriously for a while.

It was good to get to know the girls before I get there and means for pre-season it won’t be too strange. It has been nice to even get to know the campus where I’ll be for the next three years.

In total I’ve been up now three times, the first being for a quiz with Christians in Sport which I was helping run as part of my gap year on their Academy program, then the two times after when I’ve been training.

After my chat with the coach I can’t wait to get started and see how my future is going to pan out there because there is so much opportunity for me to develop and reach my full potential which for me is really exciting!

Until next time

J