A team of USC cyclists that includes six Pro Racing Sunshine Coast (PRSC) athletes will spearhead USC’s bid for glory at the UniSport Nationals Division 1 on the Gold Coast next week.

USC is sending 114 student athletes to compete across 12 sports at the fierce-but-friendly carnival involving university students from across Australia from Monday 28 September to Thursday 3 October.

The PRSC cyclists of Matthew Rice, Ashley Mackay, Taj Jones, Zack Gilmore, Amarni Drake, and Jonathon Noble will be joined by Kyle Shipton to create a formidable team on the road and on the track.

As well as cycling, USC student athletes will compete in badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, cheer & dance, futsal, golf, handball, lawn bowls, rowing, touch and volleyball.

The five-member lawn bowls team will have an ace up its sleeve with the inclusion of Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Rebecca Rixon.

USC Sport coordinator Gary Moore said this was the largest and strongest team ever to represent USC at the Nationals Division 1 carnival. He attributed this to the involvement of more students from USC’s High Performance Student Athlete program.

More details about the Nationals Division 1 are at www.unisport.com.au/nationals.

USC will hand out uniforms to its student athletes tomorrow (Wednesday 25 September) at 4pm at the USC Stadium. Media are welcome to attend.

Meanwhile, two USC students are currently competing at the Surfing Nationals in Sydney (www.unisport.com.au/surfing-div1) and the University will send a rugby league 9s team to The University Rugby League 9s in Parramatta on 18-19 October.