Olympians take top University sports awards

Olympic gold medal winning rower Hamish Bond has capped a stellar year by winning the sportsperson of the year award at this evening’s New Zealand Universities Blues Awards.

The awards, sponsored by ASB Bank, were announced at a dinner at Massey University’s Wellington campus.

The Cambridge-based rower teamed up with Eric Murray to win the gold medal in the men’s pair at the Olympic Games in London. The pair has not been beaten in three years.

Mr Bond, who graduated with a Bachelor of Business Studies from Massey University earlier this year, was one of several Olympians honoured at the Blues presentation.

Another gold medallist in London, kayaker Lisa Carrington, was named Maori sportsperson of the year. Ms Carrington, also from Massey University, paddled to gold in the 200m flat-water kayak event in London.

Two distinguished performance awards were presented to student-athletes for performances in non-Blues sports. These went to Massey University student Sam Meech (yachting) and AUT University’s Darcell Apelu (timber sport).

Six student-athletes were honoured with outstanding performance awards for their efforts at the 2011 World University Games held in Shenzhen, China. They were Massey University swimmers Kurt Bassett, Amaka Gessler, Glenn Snyders, Matthew Stanley and Natasha Hind, Lauren Boyle (University of California, Berkley), Melissa Ingram (University of Auckland) and Gareth Kean (Victoria University).

The New Zealand Universities Blues were awarded to 67 student-athletes in 2102. Recipients must be high achievers both academically and in their sport – as well as achieving international representation at the highest level, they must also pass at least one third of a full-time course in the year of the award. The Blues have been awarded in New Zealand since 1919.

Details of the Blues recipients can be found here.