University sports
The University of Cambridge is recognised as much for its illustrious sporting tradition as it is for excellence in education, learning and research.
Over the past 150 years, the University has been home to some of the world’s greatest sports people – from Michael Atherton, to Emma Pooley, to a host of Olympians and Paralympians. This history translates into a vibrant sports scene in the University today. With 53 sports clubs and a range of sporting societies, the University is one of the country’s leading centres for student sport. Cambridge regularly places in the top 20 universities in the country in BUCS competition, and a range of scholarships for elite athletes are available.
Sport at Cambridge is supported by excellent facilities. The University Sports Service is committed to developing sport within the University and across Cambridgeshire.
Here are profiles of just a few Clare Hall students who’ve performed at the highest level of University sports here at Cambridge…
Olivia Gaughran
- Sport: Football (CUAFC)
- Subject: MPhil in Social Anthropology
- Highest achievement as a student athlete: 2022 Varsity Match vs. Oxford, 2-0 victory
- Wider achievements: after playing competitive football in the USA for over ten years, Olly became a starting centre-midfielder for Cambridge, and a volunteer coach for Sawston U8 and U11 girls teams
Playing football for the University, living in a college house with ten other wonderful students, and challenging myself in a new country made me healthier and happier. Not least, my mental health and self-confidence improved significantly because of my experience here.
Julius Christopher Baeck
- Sport: Handball
- Subject: PhD in Cancer Immunology
- Highest achievement as a student athlete: Varsity 2020, 2021 and 2022, Student Championship 2020 and 2021
- Wider achievements: Half blue status awarded for the Varsity match 2020 against Oxford; third place in the Student Championships 2021 (third best student team in the country); Varsity 2022: Coming back from a 5-goal deficit in the last two minutes of the game to win it in over time
Matthew Neville
- Sport: Men’s Blues Ice Hockey
- Subject: PhD in Biological Sciences at the Wellcome Sanger Institute – studying genetic mutations in human reproductive cells
- Highest achievement as student athlete: played as the starting goaltender for Cambridge in the last four Varsity matches against Oxford, with Cambridge winning all four
- Wider achievements: won Cambridge Varsity Most Valuable Player in the 2021 Varsity Match that Cambridge won 4-3 in a shootout
I was Co-President of the Cambridge University Ice Hockey Club (CUIHC) for two years, helping merge with the women’s Ice Hockey Club to form a single Joint Club which was awarded as the University of Cambridge Sport Club of the Year in 2022.
Troy Sestich
- Sport: American Football
- Subject: MPhil in Film and Screen Studies
- Highest achievement as student athlete: Varsity and competed in BUCS Southeaster Tier 2A
- Wider achievements: Special Teams MVP in the Varsity Match against Oxford
If you’d like to appear on this page, please do email your profile and photograph to communications.manager@clarehall.cam.ac.uk