Crista Cullen

Top hockey defender Crista Cullen took international sports stardom in her stride while studying for a BA (Hons) Business Studies (Strategy and Entrepreneurship) at Nottingham Business School.

Her 2.1 degree is a great achievement to add to a string of accolades that include being crowned the 2006 Great Britain Hockey Athlete of the Year and the Hockey Writers’ Club Player of the Year.

Crista helped England to win bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and gold at the World Cup qualifying tournament in Rome.

She was also part of the England team which narrowly missed out on the semi-finals at the Samsung Women’s Hockey World Cup, and was recognised as one of the players who had excelled at that tournament, being named in the International Hockey Federation’s World Stars XI.

Crista first took up her sport at the age of nine while living in Kenya. She plays club hockey for Leicester, the most successful women’s National Premier League club in the country. Crista said:

“I have obviously had pressures from different directions while I’ve been studying and my social life had to take something of a back seat! But I was very lucky that some of the major international tournaments fell during my second year rather than my final year, and staff at Nottingham Business School have been very supportive and understanding.”

Crista and her team–mates competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, finishing sixth place - an impressive three spots above their tournament ranking – and giving Great Britain their best result since 1996. Their success has earned them a place in 2009’s elite six nations Champion Trophy tournament., where they’ll face tough competition against the best teams in the world.