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Cholmeley Shield

The 30th Cholmeley Shield meeting was attended by a record 8 schools, travelling from as far away as Birmingham, with hosts Harrow retaining the trophy for the 2nd year running and winners from 2 years ago St Paul's in 2nd. A slightly under-strength yet committed Highgate team pushed Eton hard for 3rd for most of the afternoon but suffered some bad luck in a couple of the relays, nonetheless defeating strong opposition from King Edward's Birmingham, Haileybury, Forest and St Albans.

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For the juniors, Richard Footman competing a year under-age, was the star performer with a resounding win in the 400m, in an excellent time of 57 seconds. Josh O'Neill smashed his personal best in the 800m to record 2m21 and Kayne Rayner picked up an impressve tally of points in the hurdles and in the javelin for the second week running. Tom Henderson also picked up 2 valuable 2nd places in the triple and long jump to help the juniors to 3rd overall, the best placed of the 3 HG teams.

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In the seniors, Abeyomi Epega recorded a confidence boosting win in the 100m in 11.4 seconds before taking 2nd in the Long Jump with a personal best of 5m48. Archie and Joe Patch also recorded new best times of 4m41 and 4m42 in the 1500m and Gabriel Mador showed a surprise talent for the hurdles with second place in the B tsring. Ryan Evans was a committed performer in 4 events, finishing consistently high in the field in probably the highest standard age group of the day.

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The seniors were misisng several key athletes, but those present showed a tremendous team spirit to fill every event and to record some outstanding individual performances. The 200m saw 2 HG victories with Joe Winter and Harry Ashman clcoking 23.2 and 23.6 seconds respectively. Captain Nick Hooton was an agonizingly close 2nd on the 800m before running a brilliant 52.5 in the 400m, in a race won in 49.3 seconds! Michael Allan-Dan knocked another 5 seconds off his best in the 800m to come 3rd in 2m01. Harry Hatchwell and Joe Malpas had the unenviable task of doing the honours in the steeplechase and came away with very solid 3rd and 5th places. The superb spirit of the senior team was epitomized by a wonderful team effort in the last event of the day, the 4 x 400m, as Hooton, Ashman, Winter and Allan-Dan just just hung on to 2nd in a nail-biting race.

Thanks are due to all Simon Brunskill, Henley-Henley-Smith, Colin Henderson and Nick Starbrook who all helped to officiate and to Stuart Evans for once again ensuring the smooth running of the event, despite a rain downfall which fortunately only struck at the very end of day.  GDC

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