ISA National Athletics Finals

Following on from the County Championships the previous Saturday, several LCS students qualified for the Independent Schools National Athletics Finals. These took place on Monday 16th June at Alexander Stadium, a fantastic venue for such a big event. This is only the third time that LCS have taken part in the ISA athletics competitions and across the previous two years, we managed to win a total of four medals which is amazing. 

This year, we were really hopeful of winning some more medals and adding to that total if possible. Some of the athletes who competed at the Staffordshire Schools County Championships were again competing, but this time for the Midlands Regional Independent Schools Team. These students were Freya, Charlie, Louis, Luella and Ruby, who were also joined in the team by Isla and Ben.

Freya and Isla were first to compete in the 1500m and javelin respectively. Freya did a brilliant job pacing herself round the three and three-quarter laps and she was rewarded with a new PB. Isla did really well too, in an event she only started this summer and has improved massively. Ben was in a strong U15 boys' 300m race and had to battle hard against some quick runners.

The first medal from an LCS pupil came in the U15 boys' 200m, where Louis ran a superb race and was able to finish in a very close second place to pick up the silver medal. After this, the medals kept coming. Charlie performed brilliantly in the U15 boys' triple jump and held his nerve in a close competition to take the bronze medal. Then Ruby backed up her silver at the County Championships with a bronze medal in the U17 girls' javelin, in an extremely close competition where the top three were split by only 20cm.

We then headed into the relays and we had three of our students in competition. Ben and Louis made up half of the U15 boys' team, which took the bronze medal, and Luella ran a strong second leg to help the Midlands team secure a silver medal in the U17 girls' relay.  All the athletes had their medals presented by Alex Bell, who is a GB Olympian and the British 800m record holder.

It really is a fantastic effort from all the pupils just to qualify for a National event, but it was amazing that we were able to win a total of six medals, more than double the number LCS had won in the previous two years.
 
Luella – Relay 2nd
Louis – Relay 3rd and 200m 2nd
Ben – Relay 3rd and 300m
Freya – 1500m
Charlie – Triple Jump 3rd
Isla – Javelin
Ruby – Javelin 3rd
 
Several of our Year 10 pupils volunteered at the event, learning about a new sport and understanding what goes into running such a large event. We had pupils helping on the field events by measuring jumps/throws and they were also assisting with the general organisation of the event too. They were all a credit to LCS and came across as polite, helpful and enthusiastic.  We are very lucky at LCS to have so many older students who are great at volunteering and working with younger pupils. This was on show again on Monday and hopefully they all were able to get something from the event.  Well done and thank you to: Leni, Nicola, Ruby, Daniel, Luella, Izzy, Sam and Holly.

Mr Mayne