Abingdon News No. 60

www.abingdon.org.uk 17 On 3 March, the cross country squad travelled to Marlborough to compete in their annual invitational meet. A truly testing hilly course was made all the more challenging by the heavy rain earlier in the week, making conditions slippery underfoot. The junior and intermediate teams finished in 1st place, with the seniors finishing 2nd behind a strong Harrow contingent. In January, the Miell-Ingram brothers travelled to Belfast to compete in the Northern Ireland International Cross Country meet. Competing in the U17 category, 5th Year student, Quinn, ran maturely and was the first Englishman across the line in 7th place. His brother, Rowan, competing in the U20 age group, faced stiff opposition from contenders but gauged his effort superbly, creating a gap from the main group of chasing athletes on the final lap and finished in 4th place. In doing so, he was selected to run for England in the Belgium Cross Cup held in early February in Diest. On 9 February, the Abingdon squad travelled to Radley to compete in the Radley Relays. It was fantastic to be able to field 3 senior, 3 inter and 2 junior teams. On an unseasonably dry course, the pupils performed incredibly well to come away with 1st in the senior race, 1st in the inter race, and 3rd in the junior competition. Special mention must go to the senior B team for placing 3rd overall with all runners recording sub 12 minute times. A quartet of Abingdon runners travelled to Sevenoaks in January to compete in the prestigious Knole Run. At 9.4km in length and set within the hilly National Trust park, it is one of the toughest and most eagerly anticipated races of the season, attracting many of the top cross country schools from around the country. d’Arcy and Miell-Ingram set a fast pace and opened a commanding lead with d’Arcy taking the individual victory and Miell-Ingram finishing 2nd place. Special mention must go to 5th Year, Miell-Ingram, competing at his first Knole run and finishing in 10th place. Louis Trotter ran superbly well to finish in 69th, rounding off a successful race for the Abingdon squad. Cross-country Making a big splash Abingdon travelled to Eton for the first swimming gala in their new pool in the recently finished Athens Sports Centre. Out of the 22 races, Abingdon won 17, including all of the U18 races. The Abingdon B teams swam well and students who don’t often get to race got some excellent times and some personal bests. Record breakers On 11 March, we competed against a myriad of senior schools in the Bath and Otter relays, held at the London Aquatic Centre. The first event was the 4x100 FS relay in which we qualified for the final in 7th place! Abingdon rarely qualifies for this final, so it was a huge achievement for the team. In the final, the team dived in, swam their hearts out and finished 7th in a time of 3:53.26 punching well above their weight. The medley event in the afternoon played to our strengths as, at 4x50, it was more manageable. The team of Skelton (backstroke), Tugcetin (breaststroke), Richards-Knight (butterfly) and Cooper Marcos (frontcrawl) landed a new school record, ousting the previous record held by Esnouf, Teh, Law and Eccleston set at the same event back in 2014. Going into the final, Abingdon was placed 6th and finished 6th with a time of 1:54.70 - breaking the record broken only an hour earlier! Huge congratulations and thanks to all our team, many of whom then went on to Wycombe to compete in the National qualifiers over the weekend. Badminton The Badminton 1st team were back in action on 22 January to play their second fixture of the year - against Harrow. Dominant from the start, Abingdon put in a great performance with all pairs playing with precision and vigour. The stars of the show were Harrison Cruikshank and Will Sue who won all four of their matches. In the end, Abingdon took the fixture 15 games to 1. Abingdon Sport International success for brothers Marlborough invitational meet Knole Run Radley Relays