Department of Engineering / News / Four Engineering alumni at the Beijing Olympics

Department of Engineering

Four Engineering alumni at the Beijing Olympics

Four Engineering alumni at the Beijing Olympics

Tom James

Four Engineering alumni will represent Great Britain when the Olympic Games get under way in Beijing this week.

Emma Pooley (2001 Matriculation, Trinity Hall college) who was featured recently in a lengthy article in The Guardian newspaper, has been selected for the Road Cycling team. Emma was a runner as a schoolgirl and made the transition from triathlon to road racing purely by chance while a student at Cambridge after going out training with the local cycling club. She now combines full-time racing with a PhD in soil engineering at Zurich under the tutelage of Sarah Springman who was a lecturer here at the Department. Most elite British cyclists are full-time athletes, many of them having come through the system from junior level, Emma is a throwback to the days when bike riders worked or studied alongside their racing.

Andrew Baddeley (2000 Matriculation, Gonville and Caius college) who won the 'Dream Mile' in Oslo recently and is therefore considered a medal prospect in the 1500 Metres was recently featured prominently in The Observer newspaper.

Before the 'Dream Mile' in Oslo, a Briton had not won the mile since Peter Elliott in 1991. When Andrew crossed the finish line first, his performance signalled what athletics fans will hope is the end of a very long lean spell for British middle-distance runners. So lean has it been, that many fans would not even have known about Andrew despite his status as the top Briton over 1500 metres. His progress has been steady and mainly low profile since embarking on an athletics career after graduating from Cambridge. Andrew earned a double first in Aeronautical Engineering.

Tom Stallard (1998 Matriculation, Jesus college) a rower, is in the Men's Eight team. Tom is a former World champion who represented Team GB in the 2004 Olympic Games. A four time Cambridge Blue, he won a bronze medal in the eight at the 2007 World Rowing Championships. Tom is studying Motorsports engineering at Brunel.

Tom James (2002 Matriculation, Trinity Hall college) has been selected for the world renowned Men's Four. Tom made his GB Senior team debut as a 19 year old in 2003, winning his place in the men's eight and to a bronze medal at the World Championships in Milan. Recently he has had some injury problems and missed the last Olympics through injury. Tom was recently featured prominently in The Telegraph newspaper.

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.