Beth Crumpton

Beth Crumpton will receive her Sport Business Management degree, which she competed alongside training and competing in cyclo-cross.

The 25-year-old, of Redditch, said: “It’s amazing!  I never thought I would go to university so to be graduating with a 2:1 is better than I could imagine.  I feel really proud to have accomplished graduating alongside my cycling aspirations.”

Cyclo-cross involves, for women, a minimum 40-minute race, with a 6-9 minute lap incorporating a variety of surfaces, such as grass, wooded sections, road, sand, and challenges such as corners, steps, descents, hills and planks. 

Beth represented England at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, finishing ninth, and won the Cyclo-Cross National Trophy in the 2018/19 season, retaining her title from the previous year.  She is ranked in the top 50 cyclo-cross cyclists in the world.  In February she competed for Great Britain in the Elite Cyclo-Cross World Championships in Denmark.

Beth was talent spotted by British Cycling at 18 and progressed through their Olympic pathways onto the full-time Olympic Academy Programme.

She was on the University’s sports scholarship programme, giving her financial and academic support, as well as access to specialist lifestyle advice.  She said that the financial support had helped her to travel to Europe where most of the racing is based.  Many of her competitors are full-time athletes.

“I have had access to everything that I used to have from a national governing body,” she said. “It was helpful to have people support me who understood the demands of sport and could advise me.”

“The lecturers in the sport department were also so lovely and understanding when it came to juggling all my cycling alongside assignments.  Help was there whenever it was needed and we were given the flexibility to choose our own areas of interest when it came to assignments.”

Beth hopes to go on to a career in performance and elite sport, programme managing or organising big sporting events.