Athletics Team Success at Harrow

By Henry Fagan

Almost exactly a month after the last athletics meet at Harrow School, the Hampton athletics team travelled to Harrow to compete against the top schools in the local area. Unlike the rather windy conditions of their previous visit, this time conditions were very still, with fast times predicted around the 400m track.

The junior sprinters have been in great form this season, often finishing on the podium in their races. This form continued at Harrow with a total of five medals awarded to the young Hampton athletes. This included Jayden Oni who finished third in his 100m race and first in his 300m race, and Sam Moylan-Jones who finished third in both his 100m race and 300m race. The junior 4 x 100m team also secured a highly competitive third place with Harrow coming away with the victory. There were also many other impressive performances by our junior athletes over the longer distances with Marcus Solomon winning his 1500m race in a new School record by four seconds to finish in a stunning time of 4:33.27.

The intermediate age group (Fourth and Fifth Year) struggled to field as many athletes for their races due to the GCSE exams which are currently taking place. However, this did not stop them from putting in a series of strong performances across the day. Fourth Year Jacob Austin finished first in the triple jump, a feat matched by Fifth Year Aaron Mills in the 100m hurdles. Fifth Year pupil Kieran Bouwmeester-Reid put in a series of strong performances across the day, with a total of four first place finishes in the five events he took part in. Special mention must go to Kieran for his performance in the shot put, in which he achieved a massive throw of 13.48m, and in the high jump with an exceptional height of 1.83m. There was bronze in the 100m for Nicolas Wojtylak Herrero, two more bronzes by Joe Murray and James Queen in their respective 200m races, and a further a bronze and silver in the 4 x 100m relay and the 4 x 400m relay (where they broke the School record by 4 seconds). There was also a bronze for Freddie Bate in the 1500m who, having realised it was an almost impossible task to contend with the two leaders, eased off the pace in order to save some energy for the imminent 4 x 400m race.

The senior age group, despite consisting of only Lower Sixth athletes, also put in a stellar performance. They received an identical total to the intermediate group of eight medals. This comprised two bronzes in the 200m from Suryaksh Tewatia and Cameron Hill, a gold from Stanley Cummings on his first individual 400m race, a silver by Gus Carter in his 400m (breaking the school record in this event by nearly a second with a time of 51.33), two bronzes by Henry Fagan in the 800m and the 1500m (where he made an identical decision to Freddie Bate by allowing the two leaders to run their own race in order to save his legs for the upcoming 4 x 400), a silver in the 4 x 100m with Suryaksh Tewatia’s outstanding leg to overtake two schools in the finishing 50m to take us from fourth to second, and finally an outstanding gold in the 4 x 400m with Stanley Cummings running a superb finishing leg to stave off the ever-closing Harrow anchor leg.

So overall, the Hampton team had an outstanding day with a total of three school records, 21 medals and enough fun to see us through the impending exams. Shephard of the Lower Sixth summed up the day by saying “this running malarkey ain’t that bad.”