Zac Stubblety-Cook has been awarded Academic Athlete of the Year at Griffith’s 2019 Blues Awards for Sporting Excellence.
The award is given to an athlete who maintains the highest grade point average from the previous three semesters of studying, while taking into consideration their study and sporting load.
Zac balanced training for and competing in the World Swimming Championships this year while studying dual degrees and maintaining an extremely high GPA over the last 12 months.
The award for Most Outstanding Sporting Achievement in 2019 was jointly bestowed on cyclist Steph Morton and freestyle swimmer Emma McKeon.
Director Griffith Sports College Duncan Free OAM said it was a tough decision to award the title to just one athlete.
“The award should go to the athlete who has reached the pinnacle of their sport, and achieved the highest results for 2019 and it was hotly contested, with so many great results it was hard to spilt two athletes,” he said.
Cyclist Stephanie Morton, a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice student, was unable to attend the awards, which were held at Griffith’s Nathan campus, due to training commitments at her home base in Adelaide as a part of the Australian track cycling team.
“Steph had her best year to date, winning both Gold and Silver at this year’s World Track Cycling Championships,” said Free.
“She won Gold with her partner Kaarle McCulloch in the Team Sprint and Silver in the Individual Sprint. We look forward to seeing what Steph can do next year at Tokyo in both of these events.”
Joint winner Emma McKeon, a Bachelor of Public Health student and Griffith Swimming Club member, is also well advanced in her training for Tokyo next year.
“With an impressive World Championships this year, Emma won two gold medals in the 100m and 200m freestyle relays and was part of the relay team that set the new world record this year in the four x 200m freestyle relay,” Free said.
“She also won three Silver medals in relays and won Bronze in the individual 100m butterfly.”