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| Photo: Olivia Johnston Photography |
Olympic Bronze for Old Oakhamian
15 August 2012
Former Oakham pupil Crista Cullen has won an Olympic bronze medal with the GB women’s hockey team at London 2012.
The women gave one of their best performances of the Games to beat New Zealand 3-1 at the Riverbank Arena, watched by the Duchess of Cambridge.
Crista Cullen scored the second of the three goals to help secure the hard fought victory.
The result ended a 20 year wait to capture a medal in women’s hockey and matches the bronze won by the women’s team in Barcelona in 1992.
OO Crista, who also has a Commonwealth Games bronze medal, has paid tribute to her former school “Oakham School completely changed my outlook on sport. The amazing coaches I had in my years at Oakham were instrumental in my success as a hockey player. I arrived from Kenya, aged 12, and Jo Welch, the then Head of Girls Games, really looked after me. She told me that one day I might play hockey for England, she believed in me and helped me get to where I am today.”
When she visited Oakham to coach aspiring young hockey players back in 2010, Crista spoke about her preparations for the 2012 Olympics “I’m training Monday, Tuesday and Thursday every week with the whole GB hockey squad; it’s the first time we’ve prepared in this way for an Olympics as a GB squad so it’s exciting to see what progress we can make.”
Photo: Olivia Johnstone
