On Wednesday, 16th September, the Covenant Warriors took their best Track & Field student-athletes from Years 7-12 to compete at the 2009 CSSN Athletics Championships. After a day of high quality competition, the Covenant College Warriors finished 2nd overall, a stellar effort made even more significant considering the injury riddled squad, with David Baird (dislocated shoulder) and Nat Stubbings (lower back spasms) being two examples of the considerable “outs” for the day.
Finishing second out of seven medium sized schools is an excellent result! We broke records, created great memories, developed team spirit and dreams for the future. These are the very obvious positive outcomes from the Championships held at Olympic Park. We would like to touch on the other great stories, the stories about character building.
Many of our students placed in the top 3, and some didn’t. It is this group of students that impressed us most. They were gracious and enjoyed the successes of their other team mates. They cheered and supported and provided a really harmonious feel around the team. Sometimes, when people around us are succeeding and we are not, we easily fall into the trap of becoming withdrawn, and this certainly was not the case. It is encouraging seeing students enjoying their peers’ successes. It was also good to see healthy rivalry developing between peers – there will be many middle distance races and stories written about the Jesse Varcoe and Zac Murphy rivalry – Jesse is king of the 800m, Zac came second, and Zac is king of the 1500m and Jesse came second. Who will dominate in 2010?
There were a number of students who really dominated on the day and they were humble in victory. Students such as Pashaiy Ayiik, Gianni Otienno, Josh Varcoe, Darian Bell, Brendan Knol and Hamish Lawrence.
There were so many memorable races for us – Nicola Gordon and Sjaan Warren’s 1500m where they came first and second respectively. Nicola taking the lead from about the 500m mark and stretching the lead to win by at least 100m. And Sjaan, holding down second place and then being overtaken only to regain second place again. I remember Hamish Lawrence’s 100m race, Darian Bell’s 100m – awesome. It is quite a sight watch Josh Varcoe fly, 1st in the 100m, the 200m and the 400m! And then you get Gianni Otienno breaking, nay, smashing three major CSSN Athletics Records, in the 100m (13.1 sec; previous record 14.55 sec) 200m (27.32 sec; previous record 28.93 sec) and the Triple Jump (8.42m; previous record 8.23m).
It is really exciting to see this group of fine athletes succeed and they bring enormous pride to their Coaches and school, and hopefully to the Covenant College community at large, not just for their performances but for their courage, humility and respect they show to their competitors and team mates.
A key goal of the Covenant College Sports Program is to see the athletic standard of our student-athletes improving consistently, year in, year out. So we take a close look at the statistics of each event and compare them with previous years performances in order to assess the rise and fall of this standard. Positively, so far in 2009, every major Interschool Cross Country, Swimming and Athletics event (both GISSA and CSSN) has seen an improvement in indivudal standards and team results as compared to 2008.
The 2009 CSSN Athletics Championships was no different. As a team, the Covenant Warriors registered 612.5 total points as compared to 505 points in 2008. Individualy, we broke more records than in any other year, now holding four CSSN Athletics Records. Covenant College is also home the following individual CSSN Athletics Champions:
* Josh Varcoe: U/15 Male CSSN Track Champion
* Gianni Otienno: U/15 Female CSSN Track Champion
* Pashaiy Ayiik: U/21 Male CSSN Track Champion
The Covenant Warriors are on the rise, with standard, demeanour, professionalism and approach to our Sport ever on the improve, holding much promise for next term, 2010 and beyond.
Go Warriors!
Coach Johannes & Coach McEwen
