A First-Class sporting performance from Zoe

Guiding tornado jet fighters, cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats, and parachuting from planes, Zoe Brenchley has experienced it all. Today Zoë will add to her achievements when she graduates from the University of Teesside with a First Class BSc (Hons) degree in Sport and Exercise Science and receives the Human Kinetics Award for the most outstanding student in sport and exercise.

Zoe, 26, lives in Middlesbrough and is originally from Falmouth, Cornwall. Aged 17 she left her A’ level courses at Falmouth Community School to join the RAF as a trainee air traffic controller. She had previously joined the RAF cadets at 13.

Zoe followed her brother Mark into the RAF and said: “I really liked my first post at West Drayton outside of Heathrow, where I worked in a team to co-ordinate all of the UK’s low-level military air traffic, quite a challenging and responsible post. Later I moved to RAF Leeming, where I guided squadron fighter jets and trainee pilots who were flying for the first time.” During her time at Leeming Zoe became interested in Sports Therapy, and gained several qualifications in the subject. She decided to aim for a Sport Science degree, looked at suitable courses on the Internet, and chose Teesside’s. Zoe said: “There were so many interesting elements to explore on the course, such as physiology, exercise training and bio-mechanics. I felt at home in the University, and the lecturers always took time out to give you extra information. I was overjoyed to get a First and the prize has made all the hard work worth it.”

Zoe was also part of a team that produced a pioneering piece of sport science research. The project was sparked by a gruelling cycle journey from John O’Groats to Lands End, undertaken by Zoë and fellow student Shona Burton. The duo, along with Claire Donohue and Carli Turnbull, entered their research paper, entitled ‘The effect of saddle angle on stress exerted on the female perineum during cycling: A finite element approach’, into a national student competition. The perineum is the nearest area of contact to the bicycle’s saddle, and the project was the first in the UK to examine cycling from a female perspective. The quartet clinched the biomechanics prize in the BASES (British Association of Sport and Exercise Science) competition, held at the British Olympic Medical Centre in Harrow.

It wasn’t all work and no play for Zoe, as she joined the University’s Sports Parachute Club. She added: “It was a personal ambition to parachute from a plane, I wanted to see if I would bottle out-which I didn’t. When you’re falling at speeds you become hyper-aware of everything.”

Zoe is now studying full-time at Teesside for a one-year Masters degree in Sport & Exercise, as well as lecturing in Sunderland.

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