Strand Become Borough Athletics Champions

Yesterday, Strand became borough athletics champions! A fantastic achievement that started off with a swift departure from school at 8.50 sharp to get to our pick up point for the bus to take us to Cranford Community College. Forty schools from across the borough congregated in the impressive new sports dome at Cranford CC. Four hundred Year 3 and 4 children waited with a mixture of excitement and nerves for the events to begin: seven relay style races in the initial qualifying section. Strand got off to a flying start winning all three of the football-dribble, hockey-dribble and tennis-ball-balance heats. A second place in the hurdles was followed by another victory in the obstacle course relay. Two more second place finishes in the remaining races ensured that the team of ten Strandites progressed through to the semi-finals. The winners of the seven other groups now faced each other in a tense baton relay where one drop of the baton sees your chance of winning disappear. Keeping our running order the same, Theo got us off to a solid start but in handing over to Xois the baton dropped to the floor. Precious seconds lost! The middle order runners of Amelie, Lily, Talia, Mahdi and Eleanor regained our parity with the three other groups and by the time the baton was handed to number seven runner, Jimmy, we were slightly ahead! Jimmy, Huxley and Ji-Sang took us home, winning by a very large margin and booking our place in the final against Isleworth Town, Southville and Lionel. With an audience of over 350 people the atmosphere was tense and a nervous quiet came over the four remaining teams. Again, Theo got off to an excellent start and handed the baton over with no problem this time to Xois who kept our lead into handover two. This time our middle order struggled with the pace of our rivals and we slowly were dropping back positions. With four handovers to go we found ourselves in last place. Mahdi quickly changed and with a speedy 6th leg, Jimmy looked like he was going to pop with exertion as he sprinted past the 3rd place team and handed over to Huxley. Southville were ahead by a margin and still were (just) when Ji-Sang received the baton in the final leg. The Southville runner reached the turn ahead by a metre but knew that Ji-Sang was gaining on him! Approaching the finish at lightning speed, Ji-Sang passed him on the line and the crowd went wild after witnessing a fantastic race!

Strand celebrated well, but not before they congratulated the other finalists for their achievements in getting to the final. The trophy was passed around amongst themselves on the coach ride home and put on display in the office straight away on return.

A brilliant achievement for our elite athletes at Strand!