The College Athletics Carnival yesterday was a wonderful success. I always find this day a very telling day for the boys as we have some events which are compulsory and then we also have some events which are optional. This year I was incredibly impressed with the positive approach of the boys with so many boys opting to go in extra events. Below is a photo of the start of the 800m. There were 8 boys selected to run in this event … as you can see from the photo … there were a lot more who turned up to give it a go. I was so impressed, as I stood at the finish line, to see boy after boy finish the event to the best of their ability.

The boys were all keen to get involved and the only trouble with this was for the organisers who were somewhat un-prepared for the large number of boys who were turning up to each event. All the field events were totally full with Long Jump running very late due to the number of Year 7 boys and in the case of High Jump, the coach who was running this event changed the rules (only four competitors from each colour) in order to accommodate the masses of Year 7 boys who wanted to give it a go. There is no doubt that some of the boys had absolutely no idea what they were doing when they crashed through the high jump bar, however, to see them giving it a go anyway was tremendous!

I mentioned above that I find the athletics carnival very telling … this year was no different. What did I learn? I learnt that we have a group of boys who had the option to do the bare minimum but chose to do more … and this is very impressive.

The White colour house were victors overall in the end and last Friday they had a celebratory lunch. Well done to the boys in White – there is no doubt that many of our Year 7 boys contributed to their success.

Special congratulations should go to Daniel Alessi (Pymble) who finished as the Under 13s Age Champion, earning the most points for his colour. He was closely followed by Tim Clements (Lane Cove) and Ben Williams (Hunters Hill) who cam equal second. These boys received recognition at the College assembly two weeks ago.

Pictured:  Callum Dwyer (Hunters Hill)