Alex Clements
Sport: Football
Academic course: Law LLB (Senior Status)
Hometown/Nationality: Canadian
Best sporting achievement/personal best: OCAA Provincial Defensive Player of the Year 2018
2020/21 goal in sport: To use my time playing abroad to advance my knowledge of the sport, discover new game strategies and broaden my skill sets.
How did you manage to continue training/practice sport or keep fit during the Covid-19 lockdown? COVID-19 was very difficult for everyone and I found it extremely difficult to transition away from being in the gym and on the field. I motivated myself by keeping focused on the return and used alternative spaces or training techniques like outdoor parks or my living room, and focusing on HIIT/cardio rather than lifting.
2021 is now the Olympic Year. What is your favourite past Olympic Moment? My favourite Olympic moment, and I may be biased, is the Canada vs USA women’s soccer semi-finals in 2012. We may have lost but I have never been more proud to be Canadian. The epic back and forth battle lasted into double overtime, and shouldn’t even gotten that far if not for the poor officiating.
Ruben Codinha
Sport: Futsal
Academic course: International Business With a Year in Industry
Hometown: Southend-on-Sea
Best sporting achievement/personal best: One of my best sporting achievements was when I played against Benfica and Sporting Lisbon In International tournaments where I played in Futsal venues with capacities of 3000 people. Another one of my personal achievements is playing in the National Futsal League since the age of 16 which is the highest level of Futsal in England and also representing my cub in the FA Futsal Cup.
2020/21 goal in sport: My goals for the next season are simply to better myself compared to the year before. If I do this and overcome the barriers that come across during the season, I know I can achieve big things during the season. I know what the S&C sessions will expect from me due to the year I have previously had in the programme which means I will prepare myself physically and mentally..
How did you manage to continue training/practice sport or keep fit during the Covid-19 lockdown? Due to all sport stopping during Lockdown, I kept myself fit by putting together my own home gym. This meant that during the months at home, I lost a bit of strength, but managed to keep my weight at a good level. I also introduced some weekly runs which meant that my fitness did not drop too much.
2021 is now the Olympic Year. What is your favourite past Olympic Moment? My favourite moment from the Olympics was when Futsal replaced Football at the Youth Olympics in 2018. This has been the first time Futsal has been introduced in an Olympic tournament and it showed a great success with attendances reaching 6000 in some games.