SPORT

Thankfully this term we have managed to see a bit of normality creeping back into the sports world at the Royal High School. The ‘Sports for All’ Saturdays have still been incredibly popular with over 120 girls engaging in Cricket, Athletics, Tennis, Netball and Rounders on a regular basis. On Saturday 15th May there was the addition of a few new sports on the schedule, such as Kick Boxing, Yoga and Dance, which was the culmination of Mental Health Awareness Week.

We have entered two teams, our Year 7/8s and our Year 9/10s into the LTA Schools Tennis Competition and the IV’s will play a Round Robin against 3 other Avon schools in the Regional Round 1. Our first match was a bit of a ‘wakeup call’ against a very strong team from Mangotsfield School. It was a tough afternoon but at the same time a chance for our pairs to develop strategies and tactics for future matches. With the atrocious weather affecting a few of our matches our postponed fixture against Redmaids took place on Tuesday 18th May with both our Tennis IV’s playing at home. The Year 9/10s secured a great victory and the Year 7s developed a greater understanding of match play.

Saturday 22nd May was a truly momentous occasion with all the year groups fielding both Tennis and Rounders teams in our first big Inter School fixture in 14 months against Kingswood. It was sad realising this was the first and last match for the Year 11s, but they all enjoyed their Tennis, Rounders and some even went to Dauntsey’s in the afternoon to compete in the Athletics Meet.

On the amazing Dauntsey’s track there were some truly outstanding performances, most notably Lottie’s impressive 1500m win, Sophie J’s & Emilie K’s superb runs in both the hurdles 100m & 200m, Elly B’s 100m, Sophie Moore’s 800m & Emily J gained a personal best in her 800m as well as in her High Jump.

The following day Lottie S and Sophie Jean H competed in the National Biathle Championships at Millfield. Biathle involves a run-swim-run with continuous transitions. This competition was selecting the Great Britain Team for the Europeans but unfortunately Lottie missed out by just 2 places.

On Monday 24th, the Year 7/8 team played Clifton College and both under 14 Netball teams played Kingswood on the Tuesday.

For the first time we entered a team into the Marlborough ‘Nitro’ Athletics meet, which involved 8 girls doing either 8 or 4 events in 2 hours, crazy, chaotic, great fun but exhausting!

After Half Term we have Cricket fixtures on Saturday 12th and 26th June, more ‘Sports for All’ as well as Athletics training plus possibly a block Netball fixture on the last Saturday of term.

It has been a busy first half of the summer term, but we have all enjoyed getting some competitive sport back into the programme and all we need for the second half is some sunshine and warmth to really enjoy our summer sports. Mrs Atkinson, Director of Sport

Marlborough Nitro Athletics

On Thursday 27th May, our athletics team competed in a Nitro Athletics Meet. Having never competed in one before, it was a great challenge for everyone. Eight athletes compete in all the eight events, ranging from 50m, 150m, 4-minute relay, Mile eliminator, long jump, javelin and the final Medley Relay. Our 8 athletes were truly amazing and incredibly impressive! Competing against Marlborough, Clifton College, Teddies Oxford and St Mary’s in Calne, we dominated the track events, achieved some great distances in the Long Jump (even though some had never jumped into sand before), and in the final medley relay 2 x 400 (Lottie and Emily) 2 x 200m ( Evie and Anja) 4 x 100m (Elly, Izzy, Emily and Lottie), we absolutely wiped the floor and blasted the opposition, coming home with over 60m between us and the next runner. We certainly put RHS on the athletics map and turned a few heads!

The Athletics team before the competition