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Posted on July 1st 2013
34th Annual English Schools’ Track and Field Cup
On Saturday 29th the Academies’ intermediate boys’ athletics team, consisting of 15 Year 9 and 10 students participated in the 34th annual English Schools’ Track and Field Cup in Gateshead. After coming through the London and South East England rounds the team headed into the final with the 5th highest score.
The day began with the team participating in their field events and producing admirable results. In the previous two rounds, it had been the field events that had produced some of the best performances and so the team approached the morning session with confidence.
First up were Nathan Obayori and Kari Onuma in the hammer. Both students performed commendably with Kari posting a new personal best of 30m and 4 cm. Nathan went 3 metres better with a distance of 33m and 7cms. Both students must be congratulated as they had only picked up a hammer a month ago and have only had a handful of training sessions.
The discus discipline once again produced lucrative and valuable points for the team with both Bradley Simms and Dele Aladese producing throws very close to their personal bests. Ricardo King and Ray Bushall produced personal bests in the long jump to add valuable points to the team’s total. It must also be noted that Ray produced a huge last round jump that was very close to 6m and would have won the competition had the official not deemed that Ray had touched the plasticine on the board by the smallest of margins.
Coming off the back of great performances at the Academy’s Sports Day the week before, both Mityrae Brooks and Robert Sakala headed into the national final looking to improve their personal bests once more. Unfortunately both students struggled with their run up due to the blustery conditions and so just fell short of their best. Mityrae jumped 1m 74cm and Robert 1m 71cm.
The large number of events taking place inside the stadium meant that a few had to be held outside. One of them was the Javelin throw in which Leo Rigby produced a solid throw of 35m and Ahsan Ahmed smashed his personal best by 3m posting a distance of 37m 53cm.
The final field event in the morning saw Denzel Christian and Stefan Bridge-Nelson compete in the Triple Jump. This event was taking place in front of the main stand and both students were well supported by the rest of the Academy team. With both students encouraging the crowd to get behind them they produced distances that placed them 2nd and 3rd. Denzel with 12m 9cm and Stefan 11m 94cm.
On the completion of the Triple Jump the scores at the half way point were announced. We were 4th and only 20 points behind the leaders. The team knew a strong performance in the afternoon would put them in with a shout of achieving their target of a top 3 finish.
The afternoon session kicked off with 80m hurdles with Robert and Mityrae in action. Again both students gained valuable points with Robert winning his race in a new personal best of 11.5 seconds. Leo Rigby was up next in the 1500m producing a gutsy run and achieving a new personal best by 6 seconds.
Next it was the turn of the sprinters. First up were the 100m runners Kari and Kurai. Both students produced sound performances of 12.5 and 12.7 seconds respectively into a strong headwind. The headwind was still present going into the 200m in which Denzel and Ray produced times just outside their personal bests.
It was the 300m that again produced the highest points total. Up first was Nathan who ran a well-timed race to win in 38.6 seconds. Immediately after his race it was announced that Nathan had broken the championship record, a fantastic achievement. Unfortunately for Nathan his record lasted for all of 2 minutes. This was due to Ricardo, in the race after, running over a second quicker in 37.7 seconds.
The penultimate race saw one of our 800m runners Janiah Boyd produce one of the performances of the day. Going into the event with a best of 2 minutes and 24 seconds, Janiah found himself in the leading pack of runners that went through the bell in 59 seconds. Janiah managed to stay in contention with the pack in the second lap finishing 3rd with a new personal best of 2 minutes 15 seconds. A personal best improved by nearly 10 seconds!!!
With the students tallying up the points total throughout the day the team knew they were very close to their target of a top 3 finish heading into the final event, the 4x100m relay. Unfortunately it was this event that proved to be the undoing of the team as our team exchanged the baton outside the zone, meaning a disqualification and 18 valuable points lost.
The final results placed the team 7th in the country and the highest state school, (without the DQ in the relay, the team would have finished 3rd/4th) which is a fantastic achievement and is a result of years of training. For many of the students this was an event that will be a stepping stone to an illustrious sporting career and for others it will be remembered as the highlight of their sporting achievements at the Academy. However for all students involved I am proud to say they represented the Academy with distinction and were a credit to us.
Mr Buss - Head of Physical Education
