Sports Round-up

Athletics

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, the athletes probably weren’t too disappointed to be travelling up to Lee Valley for the Be Fit Track Academy indoor open meet. Many were opening their track seasons here and the excitement about coming indoors led to some great performances that only go to further build the anticipation ahead of the summer season.

Going first in the 100m, Ka Lum Chew (Lower Eighth) opened his competitive account with a fine 11.90 seconds, whilst sensing that even quicker times aren’t too far away. Next up Alfred Chen (Fourth Form) won his 800m heat convincingly in a PB time of 2min24.80. The rarely run 600m event was next with no less than four Paulines toeing the line; all were guaranteed PBs by virtue of it being their first time over the distance. Running in the penultimate heat Sai Bhatia (Lower Eighth) produced an impressive 1min37.27 for second place with Constantine Kondylis (Fifth Form) in 4th with 1min41.7 – courtesy of a remarkable sprint finish – and Alexei Fletcher (Fourth Form) just a few strides behind in 1min47.84. However the best was still to come as Ed Trotman (Lower Eighth) produced a devastating kick to win the fastest heat in a brilliant time of 1min30.31. To round off a great day, in his second race of the afternoon, Constantine won his 200m heat in a PB of 24.97 seconds!

As the weather warms up the SPS athletes will look forward to moving outdoors with the prospect of yet more personal bests as well as team trophies on offer.

Cross Country

Benjy Street (Lower Eighth) and Leau Roch (Fourth Form) were in action representing Surrey at the CAU Inter-County Championships at Wollaton Park in Nottingham on Saturday. Benjy finish 17th out of 290 runners in the U17 event and Leau finished in 75th out of  295 runners in the U15 contest. With all of the top UK cross country athletes turning out for this race, these both represent exception achievements. Closer to home, Dermot Christmas (Lower Eighth), competing in his first XC race for the school, finished a creditable 29th in the ten schools XC event hosted by Harrow.

Rackets

Last Thursday two junior rackets pairs travelled to Haileybury College for an away fixture.

With a performance worthy of any senior pair, U-16s, K. Vujnovic / S. Poddar, lost to Haileybury’s 1^st senior pair 0-3 (17/18, 12/15, 1/15). In many ways the score-line was in reverse on an away court where coming to grips with hugely different speeds and angles can be a tricky test, however, the practice for Konstantin & Shlok was outstanding in preparation for their coming National Schools U-16 endeavours.

U-15s A. Dhar / E. Traissac, also had a magnificent game in their 2-1 victory, again some-what in reverse winning the first game 15/3, losing the second game, 5/15, but winning the all-important third game, 17/14.

Playing their first School fixture away is usually a very precarious undertaking, however, U-14s, Joe Burch / Dhruv Kalia, held their nerve spectacularly to win 2-1, once again in reverse order! Having won the first game 15/5, things appeared rosy for Joe and Dhruv although, as one might expect at home, Haileybury, eventually get their teeth into things winning the second game 15/9, however, that faint hope soon faded for our opposition as Joe and Dhruv asserted their focus & determination winning the third & final game 18/17.