The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has named University of Bath-based wheelchair fencer Piers Gilliver among its ‘Ones to Watch’ athletes ahead of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Gilliver is currently ranked as the number one epee fencer in the world after an excellent 2015 that saw him win two World Cup gold medals, two Grand Prix titles and silver at the IWAS World Championships. The 21-year-old is one of six wheelchair fencers picked out by...
University of Bath-based wheelchair fencer Piers Gilliver moved closer to Rio 2016 Paralympic Games qualification by winning epee bronze at the Sharjah World Cup in the United Arab Emirates. The 21-year-old’s latest international medal success – his fifth during the Rio qualification period – ensured he remains top of the ranking list going into 2016. Gilliver, whose lead coach is Baldip Sahota, won five of his six poule bouts in Sharjah to go into the...
Skeleton World Champion Lizzy Yarnold and Piers Gilliver, the world’s number one wheelchair fencer, were among the University of Bath-based athletes honoured at the 2015 Bath Chronicle Sports Award. The winners collected their prizes during a ceremony hosted by television broadcaster John Inverdale at Bath Racecourse, with Team Bath Netball U16s receiving the Junior Team of the Year award after reaching the national finals for the first time in a decade. Yarnold retained the Professional...
Piers Gilliver will end 2015 ranked as the number one epee wheelchair fencer in the world after a fifth-placed finish at the IWAS World Cup in Paris. Gilliver, who trains at the University of Bath, finished 22 ranking points clear of his nearest rival, Poland’s Dariusz Pender, after a calendar year that saw him win World Cup gold in Eger, Hungary and Pisa, Italy plus the Grand Prix titles in Warsaw and Hong Kong. He...
A host of sportspeople with University of Bath links have been shortlisted for the 2015 Bath Chronicle Sports Awards. All three candidates in both the Professional and Disabled Sports Performer of the Year categories train or trained at the Sports Training Village. Swimmer Jay Lelliott, a Sports Performance student at the University, is in the running for the main Sports Personality of the Year prize and Team Bath Tennis is a contender for Community Club...
Piers Gilliver continued his medal-laden year by winning silver at the 2015 Wheelchair Fencing World Championships in Eger, Hungary. And it was mighty close to gold for Gilliver, who began training full-time at the University of Bath this year, as he was edged out 15-14 by China’s Gang Sun in a thrilling A Category men’s epee final. Sun took the sole automatic qualifying place available for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games but Gilliver is well...
Wheelchair fencer Piers Gilliver has seen his new training programme at the University of Bath pay immediate dividends as he won another epee gold medal at the World Cup in Pisa, Italy. It was a fourth success in five tournaments for the 20-year-old, who is ranked number one in the world in the qualifying standings for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. “I am really thrilled – there is nothing like the feeling of winning gold,”...