Blog: Sports Students Give Local Athletes a Boost

Throughout the year, students from the School of Sport, Health and Applied Science volunteer at a range of sporting events to offer free massage to athletes. Cindy Croucher-Wright, who works closely with the students tells us about some recent events that have taken place. Our short course sports massage students have had a busy weekend volunteering at local activities. On Saturday we were at Crane Parkrun’s first birthday. 167 runners completed the 5k course which undulates through the park, crossing the River Crane several times. The turnout was impressive, breaking the previous course record of 95! There was a post-event bring-and-share picnic by the shot tower with cake and champagne. Our students were down by the riverside in Twickenham on Sunday morning massaging for the newly reinstated Turks Head 10k, which was part of the Twickenham Alive Riverside Festival. The event was organised by Caitlin Limmer, founder of the Bearcat Running Club. The route wound its way around the tow path to Teddington Lock and back through Ham and Richmond. Our students were based at the finish line in Marble Hill Park offering a much needed post-race massage. We’ve had some lovely tweets from grateful runners. If you’d like to see them, please follow us @ShortCoursesCPD. If you have a sports event locally, please get in touch and we will come along if we can! Our students volunteer (for free!) as they need event work for their logs books. All sports massage students are qualified body masseurs and are insured by the University College whilst undertaking voluntary event work. Please give us a call on 020 8240 4321 or email shortcourses@stmarys.ac.uk for more information.