Surrey Athletics Championships
Tiffin athletes, representing their respective clubs, enjoyed a festival of personal bests this weekend at the Surrey Athletics Championships.
Erik B stormed to new personal bests in both the 200m and 400m (24.66 seconds and 54.14 seconds respectively), following a winter disrupted by an energy-sapping injury. Stepping down in the distance seemed to do the trick for this talented endurance athlete.
Thomas W also experienced a similarly difficult off-season but bounced back in style. A heat time of 2 minutes 2 seconds, followed by a final lap of 57 seconds—completed just before heading off to his ball—showed the natural talent he possesses.
A fully fit whirlpool of energy, Pancho P, came agonisingly close to breaking the 2-minute barrier—just fractions of a second away—while competing in the age group above – the U20s. Drawing on the experience of his successful school athletics debut last week, he ran a more measured race to finish in 2 minutes and 0.3 seconds, yet another personal best.
Josh C impressed in the 100m on Saturday. Then on Sunday, in the 200m, he ran the bend faster than the straight and held on for a brilliant personal best of 22.95 seconds.
Frederic B ran strongly in a competitive heat of the 1500m, clocking a highly respectable 4 minutes 50.63 seconds—comfortably under the 5-minute benchmark that defines a quality athlete over this distance.
The crowning glory of the weekend came from Tife A, who threw an outright personal best of 35.46m in the Discus. Competing with a 1.5kg implement—20% heavier than last year’s—and against athletes two years his senior, Tife not only achieved a new best but also secured a silver medal in the process.
St Benedict’s Fixture
A quality but select team travelled to Perivale Track, Hillingdon, to take on the might of Gordon’s and the hosts St Benedict’s.
Elvin D built upon his Long Jump performance from the last meeting, as he and Oliver F led the competition early on before both went on to record personal bests in the 800m and Javelin. They were among the busiest of our athletes on the day.
Alex K started the Track events with an explosive sub-12-second performance. The local timekeeper recorded 11.63 seconds; the more experienced official clocked 11.9 seconds. Either way, his first run below the quality sprinter mark was most impressive as it was only his second outing for the school. In a subsequent heat, Jun M clocked 12.1 seconds to easily take the tape ahead of strong opposition. This was a great season opener for what looks like a top sprinter in the making.
Pancho set himself up for another tilt at the 2-minute barrier with a finely judged opening lap of 59 seconds in the 800m. The opposition wasn’t quite strong enough to inspire him to break the magical mark this time, but a time of 2 minutes 2.3 seconds was still very impressive. After recovering, he completed a strong long jump of 4.85m to just slightly push Elvin and Oliver down the leaderboard.
The performance of the day was a valiant 2 x 200m against four other teams of four athletes each over the one-lap distance (4 x 100m). Technically, we should have fielded a similar team of four, but the others had already completed a full programme of events and wisely sat out to ensure they remained in top shape for the rest of the season. Even so, an unofficial school record of 48.3 seconds—and beating all other teams in the process—reflected the high calibre of all those in attendance.
Congratulations to all who have represented the school in athletics! We look forward to seeing you all at Sports Day in the final week of the summer term.
