Annual Sports Day took place on Thursday 8 July. The traditional house rivalries were fierce with King House looking to set an unprecedented record of five Sports Day wins on the trot. The school motto of ‘only the best and everyone matters’ was very much the driving force behind this year’s event. The introduction of the 80m (yr 7), 100m B (Yrs 8-10), 300m (Yr 9-10 Girls), Medley relay, Triple jump (Yr 9 -10 girls), Soft Hammer and Vortex throw meant that 34 ‘new’ events took place on the programme and this in turn encouraged greater participation. Bonus points were also awarded to teams who filled every event. The glorious weather added to the sense of occasion and this in turn heralded some outstanding performances.

In total 6 sports day records were smashed making 2010 one of the most successful years ever. Our current Year 7’s are without a doubt some of the most talented performers in the school. Their exposure to a number of athletic events during the summer paid dividends as 4 records fell. In the Year 7 girls Discus Abbie Edwards was able to show glimpses to the form which led to the West Sussex West District title and was able to add 0.5 m to the sports day record with a distance of 19.92m. Tom Hutchin added over 3m to the Year 7 Boys Discus record with a distance of 23.54 m. Both Sophie Shergold and Dan Patterson extended the Javelin records to 22.63 m and 29.17m respectively.

The other records were set in the Year 9 boys events. Zach Lock improved the Javelin record to 32.76m. Zach also then contributed to the impressive 4 x 100m boys relay quartet who smashed the previous record by 1.3 seconds to set a new time of 51.94s. This impressive feat was the fastest relay of the day. The new events went down a storm with the Hammer flying its way out to over 50m and the Vortex winging its way out to over 68 m.

The competitive nature of the event meant that every single point counted for each of the house totals. The fact that the Year 9 Sports day trophy was shared between King and Ridgeway both with scores of 222 points demonstrated how important 1/10ths of seconds count in the final scoring. With no individual House dominating the proceedings the final scores were eagerly awaited. In his final year here at Bishop Luffa it was fitting that Mr Beale’s Sherborne House took the honours and having just won the House Drama the evening before made for double celebrations.

Mr Tim Brown

Head of PE

A full-size version of the picture above can be seen here.

This photo is posted in the Picture Gallery PhotoGallery/SPORTSDAY2010.