Hundreds of boys from the first four years of the School took part in QE’s 2017 Sports Day, with Harrisons’ House emerging as the overall winners after hours of hard-fought competition.
Almost all pupils in Years 7-10 participated in the day, which featured 53 separate track races, as well as many field events, and competitions in sports as diverse as Eton Fives, rowing, tug of war, volleyball, tennis and table tennis. When the scores were all tallied up, Harrisons’ had beaten Stapylton into second place.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It was a very good, action-packed day, with pupils engaging well and relishing the excitement of competition. The weather held out for us, despite predictions of rain storms, although at one point the wind almost made the scorer’s gazebo take off, in apparent imitation of the high jump competition taking place adjacent to it!”
Almost 30 staff undertook tasks including scoring, timekeeping and starting races, while Year 12 pupils helped out and also competed in some of the relays. Assistant Head of PE & Games Rhys Davies-Horne provided a tireless stream of commentary, with events starting at 10.30am and many extending into the afternoon.
Sports Day was rounded off in traditional style with the running of the QE Mile – a 16 x 100m relay, which saw the six Houses compete against Sixth Form and staff teams and against an additional mixed team comprising both sixth-formers and staff members. The race was won by this joint staff-Sixth Form team, with the staff team second, the Sixth Form third and with Broughton taking the honours as the best of the Houses in fourth place.
Among the athletes competing were Year 9 boys Jeff Hagan (triple jump) and Nicholas Shaw (100m). Both also competed earlier this month at the English Schools’ Athletics Championships national finals in Birmingham, where Jeff came 4th out of 16 in the Junior Boys competition with a distance of 12.56m and Nicholas ran a new personal best of 11.45 seconds, although he did not progress to the final. QE Director of Sport Jonathan Hart congratulated the pair on their impressive achievement in reaching the finals and commended Jeff on his impressive position in his event and Nicholas on his PB.