Scottish “Winning Students” Infused With Additional Funds

“Winning Students,” a series of Scottish student-athlete sports scholarships managed by the University of Stirling, has received a £2.4 million ($3.73 million) funding investment from the Scottish Funding Council.

The Council’s investment has been confirmed for the next four academic years and is aimed at perpetuating the scholarships’ aim of supporting the ‘brightest and best’ athletes in the nation.  Scotland’s Education Secretary, Angela Constance, says that “Winning Students plays a vital role in ensuring athletes in further education get the financial support they require.”

Over 82 athletes who competed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow had received scholarship support, and, among that total, 16 medals were collected in all.  In fact, the scholarship recipient contingent would have registered 14th as a program on the entire Games’ medal table.

The next round of individual scholarship awards have yet to be confirmed, but Scottish breaststroke powerhouse Ross Murdoch is among one of the current athletes in the “Winning Students” program. Murdoch, who earned both a gold and bronze in Glasgow, as well as two medals at this year’s World Championships, has said that the support from the scholarship has been invaluable.  Of his funding, Murdoch says, “it has helped me to balance my studies and my training. I always wanted to have a degree behind me at the same time and the flexibility the Winning Students scholarships provide has been equally as important as the funding in enabling me to do both well.”

Specifically of his tenure and training at Stirling University, Murdoch commented, “My next target is to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and I know I can achieve this with the set-up here at the University of Stirling, having so many team-mates spurring one another on with the same goals and ambitions.”