Haileybury athletes notch up good performances

Last week was a very busy and successful period for the athletics teams.

Tuesday saw the first of the Herts League Series where many solid performances left us looking the strongest team in the fixture. The pick of the bunch must go to Abigail Oghene (H) with a new school record in the U17 Girls Triple Jump.

Thursday saw us compete in the annual Achilles Relays, an event held to attract 20 of the best independent schools in the country. The accolades must be reserved for the U15 team of Christian Scales (BFr), Callum Scutt (Tr), Sam Stevens (BFr) and Alex McCormick (BFr) who broke the school record on their way to winning the 4 x 100m relay, pipping a very strong Harrow quartet. In addition, a 3rd and 4th in the Senior sprint relays and a 2nd and 3rd in the Intermediate sprint relays gave us the best overall boys’ performance Haileybury has ever seen. In the only girls’ event of the afternoon, a valiant effort by Lizzie Bird on the last leg of the 3 x 800m relay saw the team finish in 6th place in a new school record.

Finally, the Cholmeley Shield was held at Harrow on Saturday. A super team effort, where many boys competed in 4-5 events, allowed us to finish a respectable 4th out of 8 schools in the Senior and Intermediate competitions. There were also some outstanding individual performances, but some real class was shown by two athletes: Biyi Alo threw the shot far enough to gain the qualification standard for the U19 National Championships later this year and Matthew Morrison astounded the large crowd in winning the Best Track Award for the day by breaking the U17 400m Meeting record which had stood since 1997, also eclipsing the Haileybury School record which has stood since 1983. Both this time of 51.1 seconds and his 100m time of 11.2 seconds are good enough to qualify him for the National Championships in either event – not bad considering he will be eligible for the same age group next academic year!