About Millfield Sport News
December Sports Update
We have enjoyed some wonderful highlights in the latter part of term, with National titles in Riding, Skiing, Swimming, and Tennis, and Regional wins in Hockey and Squash on the way to National Finals.
The win on Edinburgh's dry ski slope was our first ever National Schools title, and an illustration of many of the best aspects of our sport: It is not necessarily easy to conceive giving people the opportunity to ski race in mid Somerset, but the team train diligently, are led by a passionate member of staff in Mr Richard Smith, and this week will head out to Tignes for their annual tour. Likewise we've continued our success in bobsleigh, with many congratulations due to Jazmin Sawyers for her selection to Team GB for the Winter Youth Olympics.
Congratulations are also due to many other individuals on representative selections, including James Golby for the England Schools Football team at U18, Ffion Thompson in the final England Hockey U18 squad, Craig Worman's first outings for GB in fencing alongside Bailey, and Griff Williams who wil be going to the Junior Commonwealth Games to fence for Wales. Unsurprisingly, these successes reflect the quality of our coaching, and I'm delighted that our new Director of Fencing Tristan Parris has been appointed as Lead Coach for the SW National Academy, Jolyon Finck has been included on British Swimming's Development Advisory Group, and Ian Thomas has been invited to deliver squash coaching clinics at Ivy League University Princeton.
Jolyon's honour reflects the continued tide our swimmers continue to ride, with an unprecedented depth of performance. The record breaking performances of James Guy and Joel Knight are self-evident, though equally important are the wealth of personal best times being swum.
For this term, however, the swimmers' thunder may have been stolen on campus with the biggest cheer being recorded by the 400-strong crowd that saw the rugby 1st XV earn a tough 27-19 win over Sedbergh in our first Sport Showcase. It is intended to develop further events across other sports to promote celebration in our community. Opportunities should be easy to find among other team sport, for example with our football 1st XI through to the ISFA semi final after an excellent 2-0 away win against St Bede's. Our girls hockey teams are sweeping all before them on their way to indoor and outdoor National Finals at U18 and U16, with the latter scoring 21-4 to dominate their Regional round. Even our cricketers will soon get in on the act, as they head of to Sri Lanka for their winter tour.
They are not alone in continuing their efforts through the break. As mentioned; our skiers are in Tignes, the golfers go to their winter base in Spain; fencers and modern pentathletes will contest senior national events; and our squash players will prepare for the prestigious British Junior Open, fresh from success for Fiona Murphy, Daniel Poleshchuck and Roee Avraham finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th places, respectively, in the Swiss Junior Open.
