Sport and the Arts
Unrivalled sporting achievement
Loughborough is the UK’s premier university for sport and has perhaps the best integrated sports development environment in the world.
The campus is home to some of the country’s leading coaches, sports scientists and support staff. It also has the country’s largest concentration of high quality sports training facilities, equipment and support resources.
Loughborough University has made a unique contribution to the world of sport for over sixty years, bringing together exceptional athletes, facilities, coaching and research expertise, and extensive partnerships with major sports organisations.
Some of the most celebrated names in sport have studied at the University including; world record breaking athletes Sebastian Coe, Paula Radcliffe, David Moorcroft and Steve Backley, and probably the greatest-ever Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, England cricketer Monty Panesar, and World Cup winning England rugby coach Clive Woodward.
Many international level athletes, many of whom will be household names in the future, are current Loughborough students. The University’s sports scholarship programme – the largest in the UK – enables the finest young athletes to excel in both their academic and sporting achievements.
As well as supporting elite athletes the University also provides sporting opportunities for enthusiasts of all levels and abilities and has the country’s largest intramural hall sport programme.
In competition Loughborough boasts an unparalleled record of sporting success, having dominated the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) championships for more than thirty years.
London 2012 Olympics
Loughborough was chosen as the official Preparation Camp for Team GB in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. Over 500 Team GB athletes, alongside support staff, coaches and officials visited the camp to be officially ‘kitted out’.
A number of teams also utilised the sporting facilities on campus to complete their final preparations for the Games.
The University was also chosen as one of the Olympic Torch Relay points. Thousands of visitors turned out to witness the Torch travelling through the campus.
International success
Back in 2008, at the Beijing Olympics, Loughborough had its largest ever international contingent – a staggering 56 past and present students and University-based athletes represented their country at the Olympics and Paralympics. Loughborough collected silver and bronze at the Games.
Loughborough students have been in action at every summer Olympics since the London Games in 1948.
During the 2010 Commonwealth Games Loughborough athletes won 44 medals overall, including six golds.
It is not just on the field that Loughborough excels. The University’s headline-hitting performance is crucially underpinned by internationally renowned teaching and research in sports science and engineering.
In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), the research of Loughborough’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences was assessed as the best in the country, and in 2007 the University opened a £15 million state-of-the-art Sports Technology Institute to develop cutting-edge technology for the sport and leisure sector.
